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CREATION 



OK, THE — 



Power Behind Evolution 



DISCLOSING 



The Unity of Matter and Force. 



/ 

S. E. MIHER. 




BURLINGTON, IOWA: 
11URDETTE COMPANY. 



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COPYRIGHT, 

1887. 

WM. A. MINEK. 



TO THE READER. 

THE book that is herewith placed in your hands "was 
not made but grew." It has come into its place as 
an unexpected visitant, to author as well as to reader, and 
the only apology for its appearance is that it could not be 
kept back because of an impulse in the mind of the author 
urging to self-assertion. 

The voice of truth coming to his own mind with un- 
looked for messages, and guiding his mind in new paths of 
thought, said "Write," and he has written. At first a 
single lecture was prepared, but this only served to make 
others necessary, and so the body of the work was written. 
This will account for the peculiar style of composition, 
for some repetitions of thoughts and of quotations from 
authors. As he pressed lines of thought into unexplored 
fields it seemed necessary that he should reach ultimates of 
thought by several different paths — that he should strive 
to make his positions fully understood by giving "line up- 
on line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a 
little." Great care has been taken to allow advanced 
thinkers and experimenters in science to give expression 
to their latest discoveries, and it was desired that no im- 
portant facts should be excluded from the list of experi- 
mental truths. It has become necessary, in presenting this 
hypothesis of imponderable forces, for the author to differ 



4 TO THE READER. 

from the teachings of some of our masters in science, and 
he trusts that an apology for so doing will be found in the 
self-asserting nature of the guiding principles to which he 
has committed himself as beacon lights in the unseen 
realms of mental discoveries. He has been compelled to 
press his thoughts of creation along new paths of guidance 
and has gained new conceptions of those imponderable 
forces that physicists have hitherto failed to classify as 
having a place among the states of matter. He has found 
space to have a significance in the domain of matter, and 
in its relation to the creative potencies that command it in 
all of its lines of motion, that seems never to have been 
thought worthy of notice in our schools of philosophy, 
and that exalts it to the place of a commanding sover- 
eignty over matter and the first things of a material crea- 
tion. 

Where teachers failed to lead material forces have been 
accepted as guides, and where they have led the writer has 
ventured to follow. The domain of the forces is a new 
world for scientific discovery. In this new world there are 
sublime revelations of vast wonders, but no miracles. 
Sun-systems of worlds in the domain of space reveal them- 
selves as units of creation in the embrace of material forces, 
submitting to quantitive measurements, and with possibili- 
ties reaching to the infinites of power and compassing the 
unmeasurable of space. In the field of the forces an in- 
visible atom, a line of force, a ray of light, a vibrating 
chord of sound, hold within themselves the elements from 
which are evolved all of the sensible material forms of 
creation. The story of creation cannot be told, begin- 



TO THE READER. 



nings of creation cannot be reached, and the voice of a 
creator cannot be heard so long as these facts and poten- 
cies of the invisible world are ignored. 

Upon the imponderable and intangible forces of space 
the foundations of the worlds are laid, and upon their cur- 
rents of immeasurable velocities they are carried through 
the heavens in bands of reciprocal sympathy, that are so 
strong and enduring that earth's inhabitants cannot dis- 
tinguish between rest and motion. 

In following the guidance of these first things in matter 
and power the writer may seem to have trenched upon 
holy ground, and some devout minds may think him un- 
devout, but he has learned to regard all things holy where 
Nature gives the imprint of her flying feet and her sensi- 
tive touch. He sees no occasion to fear rebuke for pressing 
thought into the presence o.f Him whose only perfect rev- 
elation of Himself can be made through His works, and 
if human thought is an image in the likeness of Divinity, 
the highest evidence of Sonship can be gained only by thus 
entering into fellowship with the Great Father. Sackcloth 
and ashes may be put on as symbols of worship, but a 
smiling face and a cheerful confidence in the daily provi- 
dence of material forces are far more becoming the wor- 
shiper and a better evidence of fellowship between the 
human and divine than any form of sacrifice, or any sym- 
bols of humility. 

This work has not been prepared in the interest of any 
sect of religious worshipers, neither is it desired to antag- 
onize any class or school of philosophy. Its place among 
the moral forces of an advancing civilization, and upon 



t) TO THE READER. 

human faith in immortality, has been earnestly considered, 
and the conviction of the author is, that, to those who ac- 
cept its philosophy of thought, there will come a lifting up 
of soul after the higher possibilities of a true life, for its 
own sake. The bitterness and arrogance of religious sects 
will seem unworthy of a passing thought, save to be de- 
plored. The thought of covering a corrupt life by shining 
garments, obtained by human penitence and abject beg- 
gary, so as to fit the moral leper for a happy immortality, 
will be banished the hope. 

The fear of an angry God and the consciousness of a 
degraded humanity out of mind, will rid life of half its 
horrors, and multiply abundantly its hopes and possibili- 
ties in the real conflicts of life. Superstitious fears will 
pass away, and the gyves and chains forged by the leaders 
of men for holding the masses in subjection to mental 
serfdom, under the teachings of old superstitions, will fall 
from weary limbs as by divine deliverance. Mental cul- 
ture and material purity will become the watchword of the 
friends of humanity and society will seek a material heaven 
upon earth as a preparation for a better state in the 
hereafter. 

Self-help will be looked upon as the only way up 
the shining stairs of a hopeful and glorified life. To any 
reader of these pages who may seek in them freedom from 
moral restraint and a license to criminal indulgence, there 
will come the conviction that the material body is a self- 
registering tablet that is indelibly impressed with its own 
records of criminal indulgences, that will hold each soul 
to the daily fellowship of its true self, thus delineated. 



TO THE READEK. 7 

Every fresh imprint of a depraved life is a new wound in- 
flicted upon self that knows no healing, and every step of 
progress made in the downward road of degradation leads 
to a prison house that has no gates opening from without, 
through which deliverance can come. A debauched life, 
like a diseased body, is not an article of merchandise that 
can be bought and sold in the markets. Contracts may be 
made and prices paid, but no transfers are possible. If 
restoration can be gained, it must be only by a toilful as- 
cent up a rugged path of earnest toil. 

The hope of immortality is not shut out by the philoso- 
phy of the unseen world here presented. The two worlds 
are here revealed as jointly material, and as necessary to 
each other, as power to machine, as life to body, but the 
presence of mentality and personality of intellectual and 
moral being must be considered from a higher plane 
of thought than can be reached in the school of physics. 
We can only carry the analogy forward from this life, and 
assume that as materiality and mentality are co-work- 
ing entities here, so they must continue to be in the 
hereafter. Again, it may be assumed, that in the joining 
of the here with the hereafter, as the physical body per- 
ishes the phantom body — that is to the physical as the 
electro-magnetic body is to the magnet— may enfold the 
mental personality within itself and take on the higher 
form of life, so much desired. In such a case it may fol- 
low that the fellowship of the here may not be separated 
from the fellowship of those that have taken on a new life. 

In the preparation of these pages the writer must 
acknowledge some pressure above self that has held 



8 TO THE READER. 

his mind for more than ten years to the subject in hand. 
Often the task has been laid aside and as often resumed, 
until with great reluctance he commits his work to 
thoughtful readers in the hope that errors may not be 
magnified, and whatever truths may here be found, become 
the opening door to a better knowledge of the here, with 
a surer trust respecting the coming life. 

THE AUTHOR. 




CHAPTER I. 
LAWS AXD MODES OF MOTION". 

FROM THE SEEN TO THE UNSEEN — FROM THE SENSIBLE TO 

THE REAL, TRANSCENDING, SENSIBLE RECOGNITION — 

FROM THE HERE TO THE EVERYWHERE — GIVING 

REVELATIONS OF THE INFINITE THROUGH 

THE FINITE. 

THE standpoint of sensible measures, to the student of 
science, is finite, and all his standards of weights and 
measures are inadequate to imparting any true concep- 
tions of the infinite: Revelations from the infinite to the 
mind of the learner must come in such symbols as may be 
translated clearly into intelligent symbols of thought. 
The discoveries of science derive their great value from 
the instruction they convey respecting fixed and unvary- 
ing laws of nature, according to which the order and pro- 
gressive work of a sensible creation became possible. 

Into the constant working presence of physical forces 
the true teacher in science must lead his pupils and as he 
does, the assurance is gained that these forces do work 
according to universal laws of guidance. Schools of 
scientific thought will become uniform when these fixed 
laws of the physical forces are discovered and their work- 
ing presence in nature accurately delineated. 



2 



10 LAWS AND MODES OF MOTION. 

Whatever place an infinite mind may occupy in the 
work of creation one thing is certain : All creative work 
has come into place under the fashioning potency of phys- 
ical forces, and such forces as now appear, in the hands of 
the mechanic, as mechanical powers. Laws of motion 
are fixed by the impressed energy of affections of matter 
in lines of a constant impulse. In all the changes of 
matter, whether of state or place, there is perfect order 
and the ultimates of motion are perfections of time periods, 
and complete harmony of elements and bodies of matter 
in motion. 

Laws of motion are also laws of work that belong to 
matter in its finest elementary states. The laws of the 
worlds are the same as those of the atoms out of which the 
worlds are built and the forces that move one also move 
the other. Molecular and planetary forces must have 
their places under the universal laws of motion, while the 
order of world creation must be in an ascending series 
from the least to the greatest. 

Unseen atoms and intangible forces, are the command- 
ing beginnings that antedate the first day of creative work. 
These also are native to the cold and darkness, and they 
encompass the entire field of thought vision. Energy, 
force, motion, are necessary to sensation and alone reveal 
material phenomena. First things to the student in all 
physical research are the seen, while first things in both 
spiritual and material sources of being are the unseen. 

The scientist's line of work is unproved by way of 
analysis and experiment with matter in its sensible forms, 
to matter in its unseen and elementary states. In his entire 



LAWS AND MODES OF MOTION. 11 

line of investigation matter is found in charge of material 
forces and he is not made acquainted with a single atom 
devoid of energy, and I think there is nothing in the 
work of experiment that can lead him to believe that 
energy has an existence apart from elements of matter. 

The scientist who treats of heat as a mode of motion 
has no test he can apply to matter, destitute of energy 
and existing as a mere passive element in Nature. If heat 
affords no tests revealing a material basis it has definite 
lines of work and gives tests of matter under the impulse 
of highest tension of material energy. It is light and 
heat that give the sublime plane of creative work where 
living organisms find birth and where the true history of 
creation can be studied in the presence of the unseen sove- 
reignty that causes light to come forth from the darkness 
and life to spring out of the earth. 

Light and heat are to matter, as life and thought are to 
the brain, and nervous system that gives to the brain its 
sensations, and it does not answer the purpose of the 
higher planes of thought to treat the lines of their influ- 
ence, over matter, as simply modes of motion. There is 
a somewhat that binds matter to an unseen energy and 
gives force to material agencies that move matter and 
work out the myriads of form and life. 

It is with this somewhat that scientific thought must 
seek an acquaintance, before it can solve the problem of 
creation, from a material standpoint, that will command 
universal acceptance. To do this we must rise above the 
testimony of the senses, and make discoveries in the 
realms of thought, under the guidance of careful experi- 



12 LAWS AND MODES CF MOTION. 

ments, in which the working presence of the unseen 
elements of material forces, that hold matter in charge, 
may appear, and the order of their work be diagrammed 
and made real to intellectual vision. 

Errors in schools of science have found place and given 
bias to the teachings of our best masters, because of the false 
testimony of the senses. These errors must be sought out, 
and eliminated from our methods of thought, before 
science can make its greatest discoveries. 

We still speak of the sun as rising and setting, and this 
accords with sensible phenomena, while scientific thought 
regards the sun as neither rising nor setting, but shedding 
upon the earth a constant light, through which the inhab- 
itants of the central zones pass, at a distance of more than 
twelve thousand miles from morning to evening, and yet 
experiencing no sensible motion. 

The three laws of motion, of our schools of philosophy, 
given as first truths of physical science, when brought 
under review, are silent respecting the nature of those 
forces that impress matter and establish the paths of plan- 
etary motion, giving to the planets their grand velocities, 
and regulating their time periods of revolution with the 
precision of the most perfect models of machinery in the 
shop of the mechanic. 

The first law of motion affirms the existence of a body, 
as though it is self- existent, in these words: "Every body 
continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion, in 
a straight line, except in so far as it may be co?npelled 
by impressed forces, to change that state." 

This initial step, in the investigation of the laws of 



LAWS AND MODES OF MOTION. 13 

matter, leads us to the contemplation of bodies of matter 
existing without law, and independent of any innate 
energy, or any outward moving force. This affirmation, 
of the existence of matter in a state of inertia, has been 
the stumbling block of science all along the ages. In the 
analysis of matter, there are constant, and even startling 
revelations of energy, that take on the clothing of mate- 
rial forms, and appear as forces moving and conditioning 
matter, changing its state, and, at the same time, no dead 
or inert bodies of matter are discovered, and no forms of 
matter appear moving under the innate impulse of inertia, 
or of a dead weight. 

While all states of matter, from its unseen atomic state 
to its world forms, as suns and planets, and its systems of 
worlds, are found in the constant keeping of innate and 
never changing forces ; and while space is traversed with 
lines of force, such as light and gravity, having 
velocities transcending the measures of thought, with a 
constant conservation of all identities of being and all 
orders of creative work in their constant keeping, this law 
ot inertia, conditioning matter in its beginnings to bodies 
at rest, without power to change their state of rest, and, if 
set in motion, without power to reverse or change its 
motion, confronts all students of physical phenomena, as 
an unquestioned fundamental law of physics, or, more 
accurately speaking, as a phenomenon without law. 

Again: This dead weight of matter assumes its place 
as a law of motion from its persistence of continuance in 
a straight line, after having been set in motion by some 
miraculous projectile impulse, and becomes the centrif- 



14 LAWS AND MODES OF MOTION. 

ugal force, balancing gravital attraction in all planetary 
matter, and thus dead weight is translated into constant 
projectile force, as real as the force of gravity. 

The second law of motion introduces a second force to 
account for the change of straight line motion into curve- 
linear lines of motion, in these words: " Change of motion 
is proportional to the impressed force, and takes place 
in the direction of the straight line in which the force 
acts. 

With these laws of motion, fully in mind, there is first 
taught the passivity, or inertia of matter, and, in the sec- 
ond place, the miraculous projectile impulse of bodies of 
matter in a straight line ; third, a change of motion by 
an impressed force in a straight line in the direction in 
which the force acts, and fourth, curve-linear motion as a 
compromise line of motion as a result of two independent, 
straight line impulses. 

If it was possible that these conditions of matter and 
force could have place in the universality of matter and 
space it would be possible to individualize the condition- 
ing impulses and guidance given to inert bodies of matter, 
and at the same time constituting them conditioning 
impulses of universal matter and universal motion, that, in 
their continuance, should become universal laws of motion. 
In short, it would be possible to show how a material 
universality should be conditioned by two centralized indi- 
vidualities, one giving straight line projective impulse, 
not belonging to matter, the other drawing from a 
centralizing, point, within matter ; the former becoming 
continuous, through the innate inertia of matter and the 



LAWS AND MODES OF MOTION. 15 

other continuous by means of a constant impressing, or 
attracting, force from matter. 

Let it be supposed that two bodies of matter, at rest in 
space, receive their straight line projectile impacts, at the 
same time, and in the same direction, and that each body, 
at the same time, should become an impressing central 
force. Both bodies would be drawn from their rectilinear 
line on curvelinear lines, approaching each other, and, 
were they moving on parallel lines, their changed lines of 
motion would, according to the statement of the law, be 
in direct lines, in the direction of their central impressing 
forces, and, consequently, they would be drawn on con- 
stantly converging lines that would meet at the same point 
in space. Such point would become an attracting center 
with an indeterminate line of motion, with an aggregating 
attracting power equal to the joint attracting energy of 
the two bodies. Thus the initial projectile force would 
be merged into central attracting energy, and the primary 
duality of motion, and of force, would be lost in the con- 
joined bodies of matter. 

Again: Were all bodies of inert matter in space to 
receive projectile force, as an endowment from a single 
commanding fiat, and were all such bodies also possessed 
of attracting energy, their lines of motion would be as 
disastrous to all laws of motion as colliding bodies 
would be to their individual identities. 

There would be, in the inaugurating of such a system 
of impulses, giving motion to the inert bodies of matter, 
no whence and no whither, no determinate centers of 
motion and no lines of guidance, and the mystery of the 



16 LAWS AND MODES OF MOTION. 

origin of inert bodies of matter in space, would be greater 
than the endowments of impulses subsequently given. 
Bodies of matter having a chaotic condition in space, 
inert, at rest, destitute of either innate attraction or ex- 
terior impulse of motion, present, to the thoughtful 
student of nature, a dead universe, pervaded by material 
bodies of inorganic matter, uncaused and unmoved; and, 
consequently antedating a first cause. 

This dead universe of chaotic bodies of matter is the 
ideal beginning of a universe of organic matter, wrought 
upon and moved by creative forces, which our teachers of 
theology and our old masters in science have relied upon 
as the beginning of thought, as first truths to be accepted as 
fixing the standpoints of observation, that overlook the 
progressive unfoldments of matter into revolving worlds, 
illuminated and permeated by constantly working forces, 
giving to matter individuality of forms and material births 
into life. 

It will be seen, at a glance, that the ideal universe of 
inert matter of the old masters cannot be gathered under 
the field glass of the astronomer, or any of its parts made 
subject to the test of the chemist ; it cannot be measured 
or analyzed. 

It is impossible to describe matter separate from the 
forces that prevade it, or the impressing forces that fix its 
lines of motion and establish within it the perennial foun- 
tains of life. Scientific thought cannot accept of assump- 
tions respecting matter in an elementary state, separate 
from those impressing forces that give to matter its 
changes of state and its sublime velocities. 



LAWS AND MODES OF MOTION. 17 

In the entire field of scientific investigation there are 
no reliable data from which we can determine the possible 
existence of bodies of matter, "separate from impressing 
forces, and hence the assumed state of rest of bodies of 
matter, in their elementary beginnings, may safely be 
questioned, even in the presence of the fact that two out 
of the three laws of motion of our text books of philos- 
ophy are based upon the assumption. 

The testimony of the senses is our authority for believ- 
ing in the inertia of matter, while the testimony of scien- 
tific experiment is our authority for believing in the 
material forces that fix, in matter, all its states of both 
rest and motion. 

We have already hazarded the thought that scientific 
methods of experiment only lead to ultimates of force, 
and, we may here add, to such ultimates of force 
as transcend sensible measure. The sovereign forces of 
light, heat, gravity, electricity and magnetism are classed 
by themselves as imponderable forces, because the most 
delicately poised scales of the experimenter fail to detect, 
in their paths of motion, the least disturbance of the 
balance. At these boundaries of physical phenomena, 
scientific thought has heretofore been baffled in all its 
efforts to discover the sources of the wonderful powers of 
these forces over matter, both affecting its states and de- 
termining its modes of motion. 

As to the materiality of these forces we have the best of 
authority for both affirming and denying. When classed as 
imponderable, they were regarded as material, but in the 
refinement of reasoning, in our modern schools of science, 



18 LAWS AND MODES OF MOTION. 

it has become popular to surrender all questions, as to 
their materiality of structure, to the descriptive phe- 
nomena which they present, as "modes of motion." 

The truth is that the problem of the forces that impress 
matter, fix its lines of motion and orders of organic work 
cannot be solved so long as dead, inert matter is treated 
as a necessary factor of the problem. All scientific dis- 
coveries lead to the contemplation of organic matter, as 
in the constant keeping of the innate affinities of atoms 
for atoms and the all comprehensive affinity of revolving 
worlds for the central suns, that give fixed laws of motion 
to universal matter, grouped into social systems of uni- 
versal harmony of motion. 

Chemical affinities and universal attraction of gravita- 
tion are nothing without matter, and, at the same time, 
every line of motion, of either atoms or worlds, is deter- 
mined by the conditioning sovereignty of these forces. 

Another thought, deserving notice, is that, as these 
forces cling to matter in body, so may matter, in its finest 
atomic, or elementary forms, cling to these forces, giving 
metallic lines of force to the medium environing the 
organic bodies that have taken on form around gravital 
centers. 

The force currents of the magnet, environing the 
hardened steel that has been saturated with magnetic force, 
are as sensitive to metallic touch as the steel of the mag- 
net. The magnetic field, over which a magnet extends its 
attractions, is pervaded by fine lines of metallic strength 
that reveal the same control of fine elements of iron that 
belongs to the steel of the magnet. The systematic ar- 



LAWS AND MODES OF MOTION. 19 

rangement of fine particles of iron around the poles of a 
magnet, when spread upon plane surfaces, within the 
fields of its influence, is secured by forces that are superior 
to the magnet, and, apart from it, and that brings to the 
steel a power of sensation that, in the case of the finely 
balanced magnetic needle, fixes its lines of rest, under the 
superior electrical currents of guidance that encircle the 
earth as a vast magnet. 

We do not here refer to the magnet for the purpose of 
discussing questions of electro-magnetic energy, but sim- 
ply to fix attention upon an organized, systematically 
working field of force currents, outside of matter, that 
are superior to matter and that have power to determine 
its lines of rest and its modes of motion. Let the thought 
be clearly fixed in the mind that imponderable, electro- 
magnetic force currents, moving in space, under the 
guidance of a localized center, such center being a gravital 
center of an organic body of solid matter, represent a 
universal materializing potency that is a conditioning sove- 
reignty, alike over both matter and space. This potency 
is now revealing itself to both the artisan and the scientist 
as a universal sovereignty of materialization. Matter is 
transparent to this sovereignty of space, and, while it is 
without weight, and as immeasurable as the field of the 
forces, it establishes the foundation centers of all organic 
bodies of matter and is the balancing agency of all world 
velocities. 



CHAPTER II. 
FIRST THINGS. 

O age has had such teachers as the present, and yet no 
age has been less confident in its elementary sources 
of knowledge. In physical science, in religious faith, and 
in the science of government, there is a prevailing feeling 
of unrest. The old seems to be passing away, ancient 
beliefs are fading under the tests of advancing knowledge, 
while foundations for new and better guides of thought 
and of life do not come into place. 

Under this condition of unrest and earnest reaching 
forth toward the future, for surer elements of thought, and 
purer systems of faith, nothing that awakens partisan strife 
can be deserving acceptance. While earnest and faithful 
inquiries respecting elements of being and of life can not 
fail to be attacked by zealous defenders of old fables, and, 
experimenters with merely sensible phenomena. 

Unfortunately, schools of scientific thought are re- 
strained from making thorough search into the sources of 
Nature's lines of creative energy, as it is regarded by even 
cultured religious teachers as holy ground. The sources of 
light, the whence of matter, and the where of the begin- 
ning, and the when that Mind-energy was, and creation 
was not, it is regarded as profane to inquire after. 



FIRST THINGS. 21 

The writer of these pages has been restrained for years 
by the barrier to scientific thought and experiment that 
is thus thrown across the pathway of human reason in its 
effort to gain an acquaintance with matter and material 
energy in the elementary process of creation's grand work 
of natural unfoldment. 

But the where of an intelligent creator, and the whence 
and what of matter, can only be sought out by parallel 
lines of research, and all classes of teachers, that tell us 
about a creator, must trace such lines of thought up 
to material beginnings, through material unfoldments. 
Ignorance respecting the latter, surely can be no evidence 
Of wisdom respecting the former. 

Prophecy respecting a creator must begin where experi- 
ment with material phenomena ends. Again: Evidences 
of a creator can find no place where no creation is, and 
mind-images of a creator can give no testimony of a self- 
eternity of mind, as a unit, dwelling alone with chaos and 
darkness. It will, therefore, rest with all those who may 
regard our work and methods of thought as profane, to 
follow us in our lines of research, respecting the elementary 
sources of matter and of life, to beginnings that are actual 
and efficient in creative work, and evolve therefrom 
evidences of mind-energy that may be co-existent with 
matter and the first things of creation, and then, if they 
can, tell us more about God, and the world of thought will 
be pleased to regard their testimony. 

The experimental work of science has made us ac- 
quainted with forms of matter and material energy that 
reach to the grandest conceptions of the Hebrew poet, re- 



22 FIRST THINGS. 

specting the creator, when he says in the 104th Psalm, 
; <0 Lord, my God, thou art very great ; thou art clothed 
with honor and majesty; who coverest thyself with light 
as with a garment ; who stretchest out the heavens like a 
curtain ; who layeth the beams of his chambers in the 
waters ; who maketh the clouds his chariot ; who walketh 
upon the wings of the wind ; who maketh his angels 
spirits ; his ministers a flaming fire ; who laid the founda- 
tion of the earth that it should not be removed forever." 

In this glowing imagery of the psalmist, there is revealed 
the grand potency of matter wrapped around with its own 
garments of light, and sending forth its ministers of fire 
from its cloudy chariots. With this wonderful material 
potency science has come into intimate fellowship. It is 
making merchandise of its garments of light, and its 
messengers wait around all our marts of trade, and go 
everywhere at the bidding of human thought. 

Now, our thought is that a divine mind is not thus de- 
graded by the work of science, but matter and material 
agencies are ennobled and made fit clothing and effective 
mediums of intimate fellowship between infinites of mind 
and infinitesimals of form, compassing all in one grand 
unity of being. With these glimpses of thought in vision, 
it may be safe for us to affirm that matter is immortal in 
its elements, and that the material energy that "laid the 
foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed 
forever," has always held the elements of matter well in 
its keeping, insomuch that chaos never had place at the 
world's beginnings and that a mass of dead, inert matter 
never was built into the world's foundation. Neither is 



FIRST THINGS. 23 

there any point in space that is untouched with elements 
of material guidance. 

We make these statements here not to claim the reader's 
acceptance, but to be kept in mind in the perusal of these 
pages, so as to avoid misinterpretation of our language, cr 
of our philosophy of thought. We think our conclusions 
have been reached, under the guidance of masters, that 
have the minds of thinking men in this age, well in keep- 
ing, and who are leading them to the discovery of secrets 
in the domain of material being and life, that have 
been hidden, from the foundations of the world. 

In the London, Edinburg and Dublin Philosophical 
Magazine, for July, 1872, Mr. James Croll, upon the theme, 
" What determines molecular motion ?" says: "It is an 
opinion that is daily gaining ground that at some future 
time, perhaps not far distant, all the purely physical 
scien ces will be brought under a few general laws and prin- 
ciples." However wide and diversified physical phenom- 
ena may seem at first sight, and however great and radical 
the apparent distinction between the several sciences, yet, 
to the eye of the thoughtful physicist, who sees deeper 
into the subject, they begin to appear as but the varied 
modifications of a few common principles. 

For example: heat, electricity and magnetism are, in their 
ordinary phenomena, very unlike each other, yet modern 
investigation has shown that they are mutually convert- 
ible. Heat can be converted into electricity and 
electricity into magnetism. Magnetism can be converted 
into electricity and electricity into heat. This indicates 
that these corresponding sciences are not radically distinct, 



24 FIRST THINGS. 

that their phenomena have a common origin, that in each 
we have the same force, manifested under different forms. 
To arrive at unity among the facts of Nature, has ever 
been, and ever will be. the aim of physical investigation." 

Again: I find in Professor Tyndall's Lectures on Light 
these words: "In the process of crystallization, Nature 
first reveals herself as a builder. Where do her operations 
stop ? Does she continue by the play of the same forces 
to form the vegetable, and afterwards the animal ? What- 
ever the answer to these questions may be, trust me that 
the notions of the coming generations regarding 
this mysterious thing, which some have called 'brute 
matter,' will be very different from those of the generation 
past." In the same line of thought we hope to make 
some progress, believing that by learning more about 
matter and its methods of world-building, we shall advance 
in the right line of progress towards an acquaintance with 
the creator. 

The popular argument of first cause as a beginning in 
the work of creation, we regard as fallacy, from the fact 
that the power of causation can have no existence apart by 
itself. Thus placed, it is not a cause, and, when result 
follows cause, it must proceed out from the cause, or 
influence an entity outside of itself. In # the former case, 
the cause must include all possible results, in the latter 
case, the effect is as much a part of the causative as is 
the cause. Neither can exist without the other. A duality 
of causative Joyces, therefore, must logically be the 
sources of all being, and such causative duality of all 
organic unity in creative work, is awaiting discovery. 



FIRST THINGS. 25 

Causes hide themselves in the things caused, and hence 
without the existence of the caused, there is not only 
a lack of evidence of a causative existence, "but such 
existence could be nothing more than mere continuance. 
Those conceptions of matter that are limited by sensible 
material measures, such as magnitude, form, impenetra- 
bility and inertia, are conceptions of matter as it appears 
after it has passed under the fashioning touch of creative 
forces. These conceptions all have material boundaries 
and are gained by experimental tests of properties and 
qualities that report themselves to the senses of the 
experimentor. But all tests of matter wrought into 
sensible forms, fail to elicit any testimony respecting the 
history of creative potencies that have fashioned them, or 
of the sources from which they have been gathered, or the 
periods of their transformations, antedating the possession 
of present properties and qualities. There is no language 
of creation, that man has yet discovered, capable of 
revealing, in symbols that may be known and read of all 
men, the true story of the creation of the heavens and 
the earth. 

The alphabet of creation's history must be sought out 
from the working presence of those unseen forces that 
fashion and modify the properties of bodies of matter 
giving them place and motion, fixed, uniform and unchang- 
ing in their orders of succession, while they, as forces, hide 
themselves in the elementary forms of matter that move 
with the velocity of light and keep company with the 
sunbeam in carrying forward the beneficent work of 
giving seed time and harvest to all worlds in the sun's 

3 



26 FIE ST THINGS. 

system, and clothing them all with the changing drapery 
of an eternal creating potency. 

As we have seen from highly respected authority that 
gravitation, heat, light, magnetism and electricity may be 
converted into each other, we take but a single step 
forward in scientific thought in affirming that they are all 
modifications of one sovereign force, having a duality of 
expression that we here designate as attraction and repul- 
sion. Light, heat, electricity, magnetism and gravitation, 
when fully understood, will alike give us the backward and 
forward motion of attraction and repulsion, while each will 
also reveal a constant right angled cross section of forces 
that give circular paths to the planets, and spherical form to 
all worlds, and all seed and germ forms in all worlds. I 
say in all worlds, because these forces have but one 
testimony in their methods of work in creation on our 
earth and the sun and stars tell the same story of light 
that is told between sun and planet. Gravitation, also, 
binds the solar system in the strong cords of its omnipo- 
tent currents of force, and fixes the machinery of the 
sun's system of satellites and planets, and hence we 
believe it rules over a universe of worlds without a rival. 

One step more we may take, in our study of the unity 
of creative forces, and assume that chemical affinity and 
gravitation are but different expressions of the same 
universal force. While gravitation finds expression in its 
control of planetary bodies, across intervening space, 
chemical affinity finds expression in the mysterious unfold- 
ments of atomic forms of matter, in all sensitive organic 
unions. I would express my conception of the unity of 



FIRST THINGS. 27 

these forces, as they appear under the mental visions of 
the astronomer and chemist, by calling them the universal 
potency of sensation. 

The reach of these forces is beyond the reach of both 
telescope and microscope, and at the same time they reveal 
their omnipotence to the touch of each atomic element 
that enters into the myriad forms of Nature's building. 

These forces must antedate all created forms of matter 
and they alone can reveal the periods of beginnings at 
which creation's work began. The foundations of all 
suns and planetary bodies were committed to their keeping, 
and they are now revealing themselves as the Alpha and 
Omega, the beginning and the end, of all material meas- 
ures of human thought, as applied to the infinites of 
creation. They are the measures of space, and of those 
omnipotent forces that hold atoms and worlds within their 
embrace, constituting a material providence over every 
thing that has sensation and motion. 

I make these statements as the very beginning of my 
acquaintance with the reader of these pages, because it is 
my purpose to simplify the problems of scientific thought, 
so as to make my solutions plain to the comprehension of 
human vision. 

The time has come when scientific dreams must submit 
to the test of materialization, to gain the confidence of 
the thinking, inquiring masses. The capacity of the 
scientist must be measured by his efforts at translating the 
true language of Nature into the well studied symbols of 
daily life. To-day is the day of beginnings of creation, 
as truly as any period in the past. It is within the 



28 FIRST THINGS. 

experience of a single life that all the mysteries of creation 
pass before the questioning tribunal of human reason. 

The environment of child life furnishes, entire, the object 
lessons from which the schools of philosophy construct 
the most difficult problems of their text-books of science. 
In a single drop of sea water, we have the problem of the 
oceans ; in a single rain drop, there is the story of the 
rivers; in a ray of light, the story of the sun, with his 
family of worlds ; in the fall of an apple, the story of all 
world motion, and in the unfolding of life from a single 
germ, the story of creation, repeated from generation to 
generation, ever the same. The observatory of the 
astronomer, and the laboratory of the chemist, are simply 
centers of observation, and the instruments and elements 
of these workshops of science, are all subservient to the 
sensations that are centered within the dark chambers of 
the animal brain. The secrets of Nature, by such instru- 
mentalities alone are disclosed and the methods of matter 
and material forces are revealed to intellectual vision ; but 
still all of scientific knowledge, thus gained, is bounded by 
the natural sensations of a single mental environment. 

Once more must be noted that the knowledge, gained 
by a single experimenting hand, becomes the knowledge 
of the world through human testimony, because these 
material forces, that convey sensations to the mental 
conceptions of a single brain, are true to Nature and 
always impart the same testimony to all sensatory living 
beings. The language of the senses is a universal language. 
It imparts knowledge to the lower order of animals, as 
truly as to man. In seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and 



FIRST THINGS. 29 

feeling, all animal life has a common heritage, and, by 
means of this common heritage, they must be regarded as 
units of a material creation, that is, in its completeness of 
infinite measures, a single unity. There is a unity between 
the light and the eye, that indicates their origin in the 
same lines ot force that now give sight to the brain life. 

In the ear, there is evidence that the chords of vibratory 
currents of force producing sound, had a companionship 
with the life germ in which the ear had its beginning. So 
all organs of sensation possess unmistakable evidence of 
having proceeded out of those forces that are unseen and 
imponderable, and that join sensatory life with sensible 
forms of matter. The knowledge of self and the home, 
in which self finds life, is the story of the garden of Eden 
incorporated into the life of every intellectual being. 
That which weaves the life out of the garden home, 
weaves the garden home into the life that dresses the garden, 
and they thus, through the sensatory touches of constant 
fellowship, constitute the natural boundaries of human life, 
and all possible sources of human wisdom. To drop all 
figures of speech, what I desire to say, is that the home in 
which a child is born, with its natural environments, 
possesses all necessary object lessons for the attainment of 
the highest possibilities of human knowledge. 

Nature does her best and most complete work when she 
reaches the high level of self-consciousness, and such level 
is reached through the sensatory communion of the 
material forces, with the self-consciousness of the human 
mind. It is upon this plane of intellectual being, that 
every one may become a philosopher, and every phi- 



30 FIRST THINGS. 

losopher gain a true knowledge of the sources of life and 
being. I write thus for the purpose of confining thought 
within the bounds of true sources of knowledge, and 
ruling out of scientific research, all dreams and fables of 
marvelous discoveries and physical wonders that find no 
place in the now material facts and forces of creation. 

First things of creation have been assigned to a period 
antedating material forces, and consequently antedating 
all possible conditions of human knowledge. 

At such a period, it is assumed that matter and darkness 
possessed an accidental nebulous or cosmic condition, and 
that a universal mind-force thus had dominion over a 
universe of chaotic matter, apart from, and antedating, 
that system of material forces that now reign in a complete 
sovereignty of universal creative harmony. Thus, matter, 
and the forces that now touch matter in its every atom, 
are supposed to have had separate beginnings, and to have 
been brought together at the beginning of a special 
creation. According to this hypothesis, matter was 
non-creative, separate from the forces and the forces have 
no place apart from matter. 

By recognizing the unity of the forces of gravity, light, 
electricity and magnetism, and their now joint sovereignty 
over all growing forms and all revolving worlds, it follows 
that the beginnings of creation mark that period when 
matter and material forces were blended, constituting that 
material causality that unfolds life-forms, wherever atmos- 
phere, light, heat and moisture give living environments. 

In a logical sequence of beginnings, gravitation and 
darkness, magnetism and cold, securing crystalization, are 



FIRST THINGS. 31 

first, while light, heat, electrical displays of force, are 
second, and yet they are companion forces, always working 
in a perfectly balanced unity, producing uuiform results, 
securing universal harmony. 

In these statements respecting first things the reader 
will find many problems demanding solution, and many 
themes for lengthy dissertations. 

The distinction I desire to make between matter and the 
material forces that move matter, have never been clearly 
drawn in the schools of science, while the distinctions 
between mind and matter are treated of in schools of 
theology as a basal principle of religious faith. The 
debasing of the flesh to purify the soul, the degrad- 
ing of matter to the ennobling of the mind, and 
even the scourging of the body and crucifying the 
flesh to purify and save the soul, as inwrought into all 
religious life and forms of worship, all spring from a belief 
in the sovereignty of a mind force, to which matter is 
accidental, secondary, sinful, corrupt and perishing. 

Hence it is that the battle ground between science and 
religion is simply narrowed to a hypothetical distinction 
between mental and material forces in their determining 
influences upon material organisms, having life. In the 
present age of scientific discovery, the supernatural takes 
no part in the contests of the schools. The science of 
theology, and the science of Nature, occupy an open 
field, for purely mental conflict. The gods are silent, 
relying solely on past utterances, while new testimony 
comes daily to human life, through new discoveries in the 
working presence of material forces. Scientific minds 



32 FIRST THINGS. 

have hitherto been content to admit supernatural testimony 
to a place in their systems of philosophy, and hence have 
taught half truths, and thereby have failed to discover 
sources of creative work, and ultimates of matter, within 
the domain of mental vision. This statement will find 
ample illustration in the progress of this work, as the cases 
are noted, in which masters in science have failed in their 
loyalty to their true mission, through an undue regard for 
ancient testimony, having the authority of divine 
approval. 

A single illustration of our thought will here suffice, as 
it will disclose the verities upon which rest the real dis- 
coveries of mental telescopic vision. 

The discovery by Sir Isaac Newton, of the law of 
universal gravitation, was a mental necessity, based upon 
two facts of matter in motion, under the impulse of 
natural forces, namely: The fall of an apple, and the 
motion of a secondary body around its primary as taught 
by the Copernican system of astronomy. The apple, a 
sphere, falls to the earth on a plumb line, making one of 
the radii of a sphere. The planet, a sphere, one of 
a system of worlds, moves on a curved line, at a uniform 
distance from a much larger sphere that establishes the 
center of its orbital plane of motion. The mental 
conception was that matter attracts matter directly as 
mass, and from mathematical computation it was made 
appear that such attraction decreases as the square of 
distance increases. Thus, the presence of an unseen 
potency, centered in and surrounding all sun and planetary 
bodies, is believed in as confidently as if the force could 



FIRST THINGS. 33 

be seen and handled, as bodies of matter are seen and 
handled. 

But in the apple, the action of the force between it and 
the earth, must have been reciprocal on plumb lines toward 
the earth's center, while on the planet, the action com- 
manding motion, must have been on orbital lines around 
the primary body. 

The motions of the two bodies, in their fixed paths, 
disclose the presence of an environment of occult force 
currents around each moving sphere determining its path 
of motion. The force environing the apple gives its path 
of motion a radial line of the earth, as the larger sphere. 
This discloses gravital attraction of the earth's environment 
of forces, affecting other bodies of matter upon radial 
lines, attracting, as appears from experiment, alike upon 
all possible radial lines that may be drawn towards the 
earth's center. The power of the earth's attraction on 
such radial lines decreases as the square of distance 
increases. But the motion of the planet in its orbit around 
the sun, is across the radial lines of the sun's attraction, 
cutting such lines at right angles to its path of motion. 

Now, by comparing the radial lines of gravity with the 
orbital lines of planetary motion, we find that bodies 
move along gravital lines with a constantly accelerating 
motion, while on orbital lines they move with a unijorm 
motion. This surely teaches that gravital attraction finds, 
at each planet's orbital distance from the sun, a right 
angled force, just balancing the force of attraction, and 
hence the even and in sensible motion of each planet in 
its orbit. 



34 FIRST THINGS. 

Again: Radial lines of gravital attractions are reciprocal 
lines of force, resulting in establishing a mutual commun- 
ing of sun and planet, through the joint gravital 
environment of the two bodies, hence the gravital 
environment of sun and planet is an environment of 
gravital force currents, centrally bound to each body, 
exchanging impulses of restraint, under the united 
sovereignty of which light, heat, life and motion, at least, 
on the planet are conserved. The respective environ- 
ments of sun and planet, have a common radial measure 
varying uniformly from each body inversely as the square 
of distance. 

Sun light and earth light respect these radial lines of 
gravity and reveal their radiance on the surface of each 
body at a level where gravital potency is the greatest. 

Thus the great problem of Newton's law of gravity 
is unfolded to mental vision. The only sensible contact 
gained by us of these wonderful spherical environments of 
force currents around earth and sun is in the vibrating 
linear currents of the so-called sun's rays of light. 
Rocks, mountains and plains., rivers, seas and oceans, 
vegetables, shrubs, trees and animals, are all built 
into place, under the unfailing providence of these 
benign environing forces of sun and planet. The 
great deep of cold, dark, environing spxce is 
thus bridged between sun and planetary bodies by 
both mental vision and se?isible co7ttact. 

Under this vision of gravital planetary environment, 
space is not a vacuum, but rather the home of the forces, 
the whence of all motion, the perennial fountain, out of 



FIRST THINGS. 35 

which come the forms of creative work, as vegetable, tree 
and animal, are woven out of sun forces and earth forces, 
establishing germ centers and unfolding all possible forms 
of body and of life, from their self-moved and self- 
organizing vibrating currents of force. 

I have thus endeavored to visualize gravital forces as 
they take on form, in my own mind, under the discovery 
of Sir Isaac Newton. 

But the sweep of the planets across these radial currents 
of the sun's gravital attraction, with a velocity like that 
of the earth, 1,000 miles in a minute of time reveals a 
companion force to that of gravity, that must have a place 
among the forces, giving motion to matter. The mental 
conception of Newton, of the force of gravity, was 
limited by the idea of mutual attractions between bodies 
of matter, and hence he made no discovery of the force 
in Nature, giving right angled motion to a planet in its 
orbit, to the radial line, joining the center of the 
planet with the center of the sun. He lived in an age 
when science was feared and fables were taught under 
divine sanctions, and hence he incorporated his new 
discovery with the conception of a divine potency, 
imparting to inert matter an impact, giving it straight line 
motion. 

It seemed to him sufficient to discover in matter a law 
of central attractions, to fix planets in their orbits as they 
already had gained straight line motion from the hand 
that made them, hence the parallelogram of forces was a 
necessity in schools of philosophy, to bring together 
straight line divine impulse and central material forces. 



36 FIRST THINGS. 

This method of incorporating the incomplete work of 
the creator with the material force of gravity has 
been deemed satisfactory in all of our modern schools 
of science. It seems even now almost presumptuous to 
question the wisdom of the great masters who have, 
under the guidance of a Newton, taught the great 
law of the parallelogram of forces; and to affirm that 
it is but half true, that it gives us an unbalanced equation 
of material forces that gives to the physicist so many 
unsolved problems in the scientific schools of the present 
time. A force in matter acting on radial lines was 
the discovery of Newton, but the force giving orbital 
motion to bodies of matter seems still awaiting discovery. 
He caught a glimpse of that world force, that guides 
ponderable bodies of matter on plumb lines, in their fall 
towards the center of the earth; and that also holds the 
planets to the central sun, in their paths of revolution, 
on a line joining the center of each planet to the center of 
the sun, thus confining their paths around the sun to closed 
circular orbits of definite forms, accurate in time measures. 
Yet he seems not to have formulated any statement of his 
actual belief as to the nature of such force. He says: 
"The cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know. 
It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, 
without the mediation of something else which is not 
material, operate on and effect other matter without 
mutual contact, as it must do if gravitation be essential 
and inherent in it. That gravity should be innate, 
inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act 
upon another at a distance, through a vacuum, without the 



FIRST THINGS. 37 

mediation of anything else, by and through which their 
action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is 
to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man who has, 
in philosophic matters, a competent faculty of thinking, 
can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent, 
acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether 
this agent be material or immaterial, I have left to the 
consideration of my readers." 

These statements of the great discoverer of the presence 
of occult forces, holding the planetary worlds in charge, 
indicate that he was conscious of having only entered upon 
the inviting field of discovery respecting those unseen 
forces that command matter in its ever changing states. 

It will be noticed that he refers to matter as "inanimate 
brute matter," and to space as a supposed iw vacuum," and 
hence, believing, as he did, in the first two laws of motion, 
it was utterly impossible for him to determine either the 
cause of gravity or its nature as an agent, "whether 
material or immaterial. 

Clearly, matter could not be inert, and at the same time 
inaugurate a system of planetary worlds, binding them 
together by central attractions, acting across millions of 
miles of intervening space, and that central attraction so 
resisted by orbital or projectile forces as to secure orbital 
velocities, equal to that of the planets, finds no explanation 
in the inertia of bodies of matter. 

But the third law of motion, a discovery by Sir Isaac 
Newton, indicates a reciprocal sympathy, existing between 
bodies of matter that conditions all their modes of motion. 
This law teaches that: "To every motion there is always 



38 FIRST THINGS. 

an equal and a contrary reaction; or, the mutual actions 
of any two bodies are always equal and oppositely di- 
rected in the same straight line.'" 

Conservation of energy and conservation of forces im- 
parting motion, are clearly bound up in this law. Constant 
pulsations of force currents between bodies of matter across 
all distances of space, measured by the capacities of bodies 
to receive and give impulse, may be also derived from this 
third law of motion. 

By this law each atom of matter, or each body of matter, 
has its measuring unit of force. It only gives as it re- 
ceives, and receives from the vast infinites of force, strength 
and guidance suited to its individuality. 

In the communing of bodies of matter, through acting 
and reacting impulses of equal currents of energy through 
intervening space, there is revealed a materiality of forces 
binding all planetary bodies, within each solar system, 
through the joint embrace of two equal and jointly sover- 
eign streams of counterflowing impulses, that impart to 
such bodies their grand velocities, and fix all their paths 
of motion. 

Thus, interplanetary space becomes a factor in the grand 
problem of world motion, that our old philosophers have 
entirely overlooked in formulating their mathematical 
problems of astronomical science. Hence, their failure 
to classify the imponderable forces of light, gravity, elec- 
tricity and magnetism among the properties of matter. 
While they have given inertia as a property of bodies of 
matter, they have not extended their material measure- 
ments beyond the liquid elements of the oceans and these 



FIRST THINGS. 39 

supplemented by the gaseous elements that unite in build- 
ing liquids and solids from themselves. The outmost 
boundaries of matter, they have supposed, were reached 
in its gaseous state, and this leaves the vast fields of space 
open to scientific discovery, under the guidance of those 
force-currents that flow from gravital center to gravital 
center, of sun and planet, with the velocity of light, and 
bear upon their circling currents the planets in their orbits 
fulfilling their measured time periods of revolution. 

It is logical, then, to regard the great field of planetary 
motion as the home of the forces that impart to the planets 
their grand velocities. This field is swept by a system of 
forces that gives stability and perfection of order to every 
line of motion, and directs every atom, molecule or plan- 
etary body of matter, that has its place within the field. 
Order reigns at every point in space, and under the sweep 
-of these forces there is not a lawless atom, nor a dead or 
dying world. Chaotic, or nebulous states of matter, are 
not possible under the searching presence of the all per- 
vading attractions and repulsions of these everflowing 
streams that pervade and encircle the systems of worlds 
that constitute the machinery of the heavens. When the 
scientific mind gains an adequate conception of the sources 
of materiality as ever abiding in the deep, darkly flowing 
floods of virgin matter of infinite space, pulsating with a 
universal dual energy of attraction and repulsion that is 
innate and immortal, in elementary forces and elementary 
atoms, then it will not be thought strange that space 
should be compassed by grand flowing streams of virgin 
matter, having velocities like light, and revealing a sover- 



40 FIRST THINGS. 

eignty over matter in all its states and in all its paths of 
motion. When Newton, in his mental vision, saw a force 
back of the sensible form of the apple that pulled it to the 
earth and fixed the line of its motion toward the earth, he 
disclosed a new world to the vision of the philosopher, 
more wonderful than that disclosed by the microscope and 
telescope. He saw, beyond the reach of the field glasses 
of science, a universal power holding both atoms and 
worlds in charge and fixing all laws of motion. Yet, he 
could not tell whether it was material or immaterial. But 
this he knew, the planets were held firmly in its embrace, 
while millions of miles of free space marked the intervals, 
across which this power performed constant work, as real 
in the revolutions of planetary worlds as the wheels in the 
shop of the mechanic driven by the flowing stream, or the 
expansive power of steam. It is clearly apparent that his 
belief in the first two laws of motion, clouded his vision 
and limited his discoveries to the law of central attractions, 
leaving the law of orbital revolutions to be discovered by 
other minds. 

The discovery of universal attraction, binding suns and 
planets in systems of revolving worlds, is the discovery of 
matter in its dynamic state, as light, gravity, electricity, 
magnetism and chemical affinity. It is the discovery of 
matter in its imponderable state, as grand, flowing sover- 
eignties of motion and of all creative work. Matter ceases 
to be " brute matter," and space ceases to be a "vacuum," 
when it puts on the clothing of light, or leaps from the 
dark cloud, choosing material paths of guidance, uttering 
a voice that declares its omnipotence ; or, again, when it 



FIRST THINGS. 41 

gathers around the iron of the electro-magnet, at the com- 
mand of a passing dark and silently flowing electrical cur- 
rent, and lifts hundreds of pounds of "brute matter." 

Matter, under these conditions, has its lines of motion 
and its grand velocities of infinite measures, with its births 
dating with the eternities and its home in universal space. 
With this view of elementary matter, constituting the im- 
ponderable and unseen forces, taking on the lines of rap- 
idly flowing currents, like those of light, electricity, and 
magnetism, we discover the cause of the failure of our 
scientists to weigh the forces. They are balanced and 
balancing forces. They have no weight, and all matter, 
and all material bodies, are nicely poised upon gravital 
centers, that take up their grand velocities as evenly as the 
balancing wheels of working machinery take up motion 
from the push and pull of the piston rod of the invisible 
power that commands work from within the cylinder of 
the steam engine. The engineer weighs his coal and 
measures his wood that he casts into the furnace as a source 
of power. He also causes the water, as a secondary source 
of power, to flow into the boiler of his engine, and 
this, too, has its weight and measure. His purpose is to 
evoke power from "brute matter," that shall cause the 
wheels of machinery to do work as things of life, from an 
indwelling power of motion. To do this he must convert 
his wood and coal and water from their forms of material 
weights and measures, to new forms, that lift weights and 
resist measures. The highest plane of power is reached 
when the coal and the wood are converted into light and 
heat, and the water into the heated, rushing, breath of the 



42 FIRST THINGS. 

steam-chest, that mark the vanishing line between pon- 
derable matter and imponderable elements of matter, as 
force currents in their native home, free space. The wood 
and coal are simply frozen blocks of sunlight and gravity, 
and freezing is the rest point of attraction, as light and 
heat are the vanishing points of repulsion and motion. 

Matter in its rest state is never released from the charge 
of matter in its elementary state. Its only rest is the 
grand velocities of revolving worlds ; hence in its elemen- 
tary or dynamic state it compasses the entire field of rest 
and motion, as a self-conditioning sovereignty. 

I have said the engineer regards the wood and the 
water as sources of power, so have our old masters, in their 
scientific experiments, treated of matter in its organic, or 
rest state, as the whence of both force and forms of being. 
They have failed to conceive of matter, in its elementary 
sovereignties over both revolving worlds and free space ; 
consequently the student's first lesson in our school of nat- 
ural science commences with matter in an organic state of 
deadness, or inertness. The forces and their consequent 
velocities are represented as accidental sovereignties, com- 
ing to matter, pushing it on straight lines and pulling it 
on curved lines securing planetary motion. The push has 
been written down as a cen trifugal force and the pull as a 
centripetal force ; the former as resulting from the dead- 
ness of matter, the latter as resulting from an innate living 
force of attraction. 

But the mechanic of to-day is evoking power from free 
space that is a sovereign in the presence of both fire and 
steam. It comes out of the cold and the darkness, binds 



FIRST THINGS. 43 

its working center to the solid bars of soft iron forming 
the balancing center of dynamo machinery, and from itself 
gives attraction and repulsion, with velocities like those 
of light and gravity, and also from its infinite sources of 
strength pours forth constant floods of light and heat 
rivaling the sun in its brightness and beauty. The whence 
of electricity, magnetism, light and heat is thus clearly,' 
even demonstrably revealed as from material conditions of 
the force currents of free space. As gravity has heretofore 
been regarded as an attracting potency, bound to world 
centers, and at the same time filling all space with its sov- 
ereign presence, determining the lines of motion and grand 
harmony of the machinery of the heavens, and as the old 
masters could not tell whether it was material or imma- 
terial, the artisans and mechanics of our own civilization 
have seized upon the imponderable forces of electricity 
and magnetism and converted them directly into mechan- 
ical potencies, both revolving the wheels of working ma- 
chinery and lighting the shops of our cities and our marts 
of trade. It becomes, therefore, increasingly evident that 
space is not a vacuum, and that those imponderable forces 
that have troubled our masters' in science so much to clas- 
sify, in their relations to matter, are sovereign over matter, 
holding in themselves all the possibilities of material forms 
and the sources of all life, with its sensations and indwell- 
ing promises of continuance. In the great circles of the 
forces, that give to us day and night, heat and cold, that 
are inwrought into all the circles of life, there is a revela- 
tion of an intimate communion between the imponderable 
forces of matter and the multiform evolutions of matter 



44 FIRST THINGS. 

into living organisms. In the attraction and repulsion, 
the choosing and refusing of the magnet there is a sensa- 
tory organism that is more than a shadow of vegetable 
and animal life. 

THE MAGNET. 

The sensations of the magnet are an open door for 
mental discoveries in the invisible world. The magnet is 
a representative of ponderable matter and imponderable 
forces. It has a real body, and at the same time a phan- 
tom body of the most delicate structure revealing sensations 
as real and mysterious as those of light, heat and life. It 
has a dual organism that unites the visible world to the 
invisible, the organic to the inorganic, the created to the 
uncreated and elemental. It has in it a center of rest and 
at the same time chosen paths of motion. It has an indi- 
viduality, and yet is a part of a grand impersonality. It 
marks out lines of latitude and longitude upon the earth, 
and also holds communion with the sun in its daily circles 
of light around the earth. It reports disturbances upon 
the body of the sun and quivers under auroral displays of 
light upon the earth. These statements need no proof, 
they are known by men of science and are open to the 
vision of the unlettered. 

The influence of the sun upon the magnetic needle dis- 
closes so clearly the invisible sensations that influence the 
magnet, it is important to fix the record of such influence 
in every mind. 

Professor Proctor has noticed this influence in a single 
paragraph on page 44 of his book entitled, l 'Other Worlds 
Than Ours," which is deserving careful attention. He 



FIRST THINGS. 45 

says: "It has long been noticed that, during the course 
of a single day, the magnetic needle exhibits a minute 
change of direction taking place in an oscillating manner, 
and, when the character of this vibration came to be care- 
fully examined, it was found to correspond to a sort of 
effort on the needle's part, to turn toward the sun. This 
happens twice in the day ; once when the sun is above the , 
horizon and once when he is below it. When the sun is 
midway between these two positions, which also happens 
twice in the day, the needle has its mean position, because 
the northern and the southern ends make equal efforts, so 
to speak, to direct themselves toward the sun. Four times 
in the day then, the needle has its mean position, or is 
directed toward the magnetic meridian. But, when the 
sun is not in one of the four positions considered, that 
end of the needle which is nearest to him is slightly turned 
away from its mean position toward him. 

The change of position is very minute, and only the 
exact modes of observation made use of in the present age 
would suffice to reveal it. There it is, however, and this 
minute and seemingly unimportant peculiarity has been 
found to be full of meaning." 

This behavior of the needle under the influence of the 
sun clearly teaches that the combination of forces that 
seems to hold the needle in charge on its pivotal bearing 
holds the worlds in charge upon their central bearings in 
the great plane of the ecliptic ; and also that their polar 
bearings and paths of motion are under the directing 
guidance of the same forces. 

The earth and needle have each a phantom body of cur- 



46 FIRST THINGS. 

rents of force that give them rest and motion. Their phan- 
tom bodies are individualized around a magnetic center 
in matter in its ponderable forms, and yet are under each 
other's constant sympathy and directive guidance. The 
sun also has his phantom body of forces, and across the 
92,000,000 of miles separating earth trom sun, he holds 
communion with both earth and needle, with a directive 
guidance over them as real as the beams of light that come 
and go under his directive presence. 

Clearly the highways of the forces of the magnet are 
across the great intervals of space separating sun and 
planets. So the highways of light are across the same dark 
reaches of distance, and may it not be possible that the 
forces of the magnet and of the sunbeams are a unit in 
conferring light, heat and motion upon earth and sun? 
Sensations go with these forces between sun and earth ; 
attractions and repulsions touch the magnetic needle and 
earth with their constantly varying influences coming from 
the sun, while the sensations of light and heat are given 
and withheld by the seeming coming and going of the sun 
in his daily circuits in the heavens. It seems as if these 
forces have bridged the great chasms separating sun and 
planets with a structure of material forces that are as real 
and enduring as the steel of the magnet or the rock-ribbed 
foundations of the earth. 

It may be asked respecting the whence of sun and 
planets and the whence of the forces that encircle and up- 
hold them, did the sun and planets antedate the forces in 
the order of their coming, or did the forces antedate the 
worlds that are made? Or, to vary the query, did creation 



FIRST THINGS. 47 

antedate the creator? or did the creator antedate creation? 

The men who have dealt most successfully with the 
problem of planetary motion have felt deeply the impor- 
tance of discovering some law of material forces that would 
account for the grand velocities of the planets in their 
fixed orbits of motion. 

I find a statement in Professor Mitchel's class-book on 
astronomy in which he says : "Kepler, whose fertile genius, 
ever active and untiring, sought the cause of planetary 
motion, and, being ignorant of the laws of motion, felt 
that he must discover and reveal some constantly active 
power operating in the direction of planetary motion so as- 
to keep up the velocity, believing that, without some such 
ever active force the planets must of necessity stop. 

''The successors of Kepler and Galileo, for fifty years, or 
during the first half of the seventeenth century, felt strongly 
the necessity of a physical theory of the planetary motions 
without attaining to anything clear or satisfactory." 

This strongly felt necessity of a theory of physical forces 
based upon well known laws of material energy, outside 
of and superior to organic matter, would be still felt, were 
it not for the discovery of Sir Isaac Newton of the law of 
universal gravitation, supplemented by the laws of motion 
that have gained a place in our schools of philosophy as 
accounting for the motion of the planet in its orbit. 

Scientific minds have rested in the belief that ultimates 
have been reached in this field of astronomical science, 
and discovery ceased. But a new light has come to us 
from world forces as they are revealed in the magnet and 
electro-magnet, and if we will but follow its guidings it will 



48 FIRST THINGS. 

lead us securely to the discovery of forces that are sover- 
eign over matter, and as universal in their possibilities as 
space is in its measures. 

The magnet gives to the scientist of to-day its magnetic 
field of material force-currents that has in it all of the 
potencies systematically fixed in their methods of work, 
that are necessary to give to sun and planets centers of 
rest and orbits of motion, confirming the Copernican sys- 
tem of planetary motions. What Kepler earnestly sought 
after has come to our teachers in science unsought, and 
their eyes seem to be holden that they should not see it. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE MYSTERIES OE THE MAGNET. 



THE sensible revelations of the magnet are centered in 
a dual evolution of material energy, and such energy 
appears at the poles of the magnet as attraction and repul- 
sion. These two classes of energy are reciprocal and 
equal, and appear alike at either pole. Their sources of 
supply are exhaustless and constant. Their strength may 
be accumulated by mechanical devices, and be strength- 
ened by mechanical disturbances. Friction which re- 
tards the development of power from other sources serves 
to develop strength as an accumulator of energy from the 
working forces that are stored up in the magnet. 

Experiments with the magnet have revealed the pres- 
ence of electrical phenomena in silent currents of electric- 
* ity that flow around it. These 

currents in a permanent mag- 
net, could they be seen as rep- 
resented in figure i, by a per- 
son looking towards the south 
pole, would appear to flow 




from left to right, and to one 
looking toward the north pole 
they would seem to reverse and 
flow from right to left. These 
Fig, 1m currents consequently cross the 

magnetic needle at right angles to the north and south 




50 THE MYSTERIES OF THE MAGNET. 

axial lines of its natural position of rest upon a pivotal 
bearing parallel to the magnetic meridian of the earth. 
The magnetic needle reveals the presence of these cur- 
rents by its behavior in the presence of a passing electric 
current. The discovery of electric currents crossing the 
magnet was made by (Erested in the first quarter of the 
present century. He noticed that "a magnetic needle 
always tends to place itself at right angles to a wire carry- 
ing a current of electricity," (see Fig. 2,) "and that the 

north pole of the needle was 
deflected to the right or left, 
according to the direction of 
the current, and according to 
whether the wire was placed 
above or below the needle. In the figure the arrows show 
that when the current passes over the needle coursing from 
its north pole in the direction of its south pole, the needle 
will swing [so as to turn its north pole east and its south 
pole west of the line ; if the wire passes beneath instead 
of above the needle the direction of swing would be re- 
versed." By passing the current from south to north the 
results would be reversed. 

Thus it will appear that the magnetic needle is held in 
its position upon the earth by the flow of electric currents 
at right angles to its polar bearings on a meridian line of 
the earth, and that the electric currents that pass around 
the earth as a great magnet from east to west, by coincid- 
ing in the line of their flow with those passing below the 
magnet, cause it to come to rest on the earth's magnetic 
meridian. 



THE MYSTERIES OF THE MAGNET. 51 

But as I have represented the flow of the currents, it 
should be noticed that the currents flow around the north 
pole of the earth from east to west, while upon the upper 
side of the needle they flow from west to east, and on the 
under side from east to west. This arises from the fact 
that the so-called north pole of the needle is a south pole 
in the flow of its currents when compared with the cur- 
rents of the earth. But by placing a north pole over a 
north pole they would repel each other, as the currents 
passing between the two magnets of earth and needle 
would flow in opposite directions ; hence a reversal of 
poles by the needle in such an event always occurs. This 
gives rise to the law of magnetic phenomena, that likes 
repel likes and opposites attract. North poles attract south 
poles, and south poles north poles, and only thus, whether 
placed side by side or end to end. 

Thus we trace back the attracting and repelling power 
of the magnet to the commanding sources of its strength 
in the electric currents that flow in orbital currents around 
it, and at all times at right angles to the flow of magnetic 
attracting currents. 

The mysterious power of the magnet is then an evolu- 
tion out of the great currents of material forces that reveal 
themselves in ponderable matter, flowing from outlying 
fields of immeasurable space. They are a sovereign power 
in matter, though doing work outside of it in grand orbital 
floods circling around it. The most wonderful aggrega- 
tions of matter in body, consisting of worlds and sun- 
systems of worlds, are encircled with the directive lines 
of these electric currents, while such bodies are saturated 



52 THE MYSTERIES OF THE MAGNET. 

with the central bindings of gravital or magnetic attrac- 
tions. 

The little magnetic needle and the great earth agree in 
obeying the coercive currents of their immediate presence, 
while the far off planets and the central sun are revolved 
and attracted by one universal binding of sympathy that 
seems to disclose the circling currents of these same great 
potencies in the fixed paths of the planets in their per- 
petual journeyings around the central sun. 

The great laws of planetary motion are evidently the 
same as the laws of currents and magnets, in their influ- 
ence over each other. If electric currents move around 
the sun and planets, parallel to the plane of the ecliptic, 
and electric currents move around the magnet at right 
angles to the same, the equatorial plane of the magnet and 
its polar positions with reference to such plane, will be 
similar to the positions of sun and planets in the great 
plane of the ecliptic. 

As the magnetic needle takes up its position upon the 
earth, with poles reversed to those of the earth, the larger 
magnet, so all of the planets take up their positions with 
reference to the sun, the great magnet of the solar system, 
with poles reversed to those of the sun, and hence the 
great flow of both sun currents and earth currents between 
the two bodies is in the same direction. They move in 
concert and mutually attract each other, binding the two 
bodies to each other in responsive sympathy, and in bonds 
of ceaseless activity and unfailing energy. 

The great law of attraction, as revealed in electrical 
currents, is that those flowing in the same direction attract 



THE MYSTERIES OF THE MAGNET. 53 

each other, while repulsion is developed when they meet 
each other flowing in opposite directions. 

This law applies to currents of the same class. Positive 
currents unite when flowing in the same directions, while 
negative currents unite in flowing in opposite directions 
to the positive. The balance of all current motion is pre- 
served in the unit measure of force, consisting of pairs, 
one positive and one negative line of energy, moving in 
opposite directions to each other, and bound, each to each, 
by some lateral sympathy. It is the equal sympathy, or 
attractive energy, of these two lines of currents, constitu- 
ting a unit of force that compels closed circuits in all 
tranference of energy in lines of motion. There must be 
a to and from in straight lines or an around in orbital 
lines to maintain current motion according to electrical 
phenomena. Magnetic energy does its work in right lines 
of to and from, while electrical energy does its work in 
orbital lines around in closed circles. These two classes 
of energy work together around a common center, and 
hence in the grand flow of their currents they must cross 
each other at right angles. These two classes of energy, 
flowing in currents, give us the companion forces that 
unite in a common field, around a common center, to give 
power to the metallic structure of the magnet. 

The phenomena of magnets and currents, that I have 
attempted to combine so as to gain a mental vision of the 
two forces of electricity and magnetism in their normal 
methods of combination, giving power to the magnet, find 
a material contrivance in the electro-magnet, that, to my 
own mind, materializes these forces in their separate lines 



THE MYSTERIES OF THE MAGNET. 



of work and individualizes them in their joint combina- 
tions for evoking power. The physicist, who, by battery 
and insulated wire, brings invisible forces to the iron core 
of the electro-magnet, and notes the displays of power 
that are thus obtained, cannot fail to note the presence of 
a material sovereignty over matter in these imponderable 
forces. The electro-magnet is of such great importance 
in the working of the telegraph and the telephone and in 
the developing of electricity for electric lighting that it 
scarcely needs a description, and yet, for the purpose of 
ascending to higher planes of thought, writer and reader 
must gain a true interpretation of symbols of invisible 
forces that are wrought into the material structure of the 
magnet, so as to gain a true conception of the phantom 
body of material form that comes and goes at the making 
and breaking of the circuit that joins magnet and battery. 

A wire, wound with thread 
or silk so as to restrain a cur- 
rent of electricity from pass- 
ing off by contact with an- 
other metal, if wound around 
a bar of soft iron, in a contin- 
uous coil from end to end, 
and the terminals of the wire 
united to the conjunctive 
wires of a voltaic battery, will 
form an electro-magnet. Figure 3 represents such a mag- 
net. The lines of magnetic impulse, given to the magnet 
by the current coursing through the wire, are visualized in 
the lines of iron filings that, spread upon a paper plane 




THE MYSTE1UES OF THE MAGNET. 55 

above the magnet, have become magnetic, under the 
guidance of magnetic lines of force. The little particles 
of iron become magnets and join together by polar forces, 
making lines that indicate the tendency of magnets to im- 
part of their magic energy to other bodies of matter, 
fixing a bond of sympathy between them. These little 
magnets take up uniform lines of rest, and, like lines of 
soldiers, show in all of their evolutions the command of 
some superior influencing agency. The commanding 
electrical currents, flowing around the core of the magnet 
are unseen, but where the lines of magnets appear best de- 
fined, and clustered as stalks of grain grown up for the 
sickle of the reaper, from the magnet as from the earth, 
there, it is safe to affirm, electric currents are passing at 
right angles to the magnetic lines. More than this, they 
are moving in circles around each line of magnets. Thus 
the disturbed magnets appear as things of life, under the 
command and inflowing energy of unseen potencies from 
their own environment of place in a field of forces that 
take on strength and diversity of individualities from a 
whence beyond the reach of the senses. Thus in the mag- 
net, the world of sensation and the sub-sensible world of 
infinite creative potencies, are joined together by material 
bonds of an immortal texture. Here the creator and the 
created meet face to face, and here, if scientist and theo- 
logian must worship, they can discover the revealed pres- 
ence of the everlasting I Am, the creator of the heavens 
and the earth. 

We must here center thought where Nature centers 
power, and begins creative work, and takes up her paths of 



56 THE MYSTERIES OF THE MAGNET. 

motion. Catechise the electric forces as we may, they are 
the sources of all creative power, and hold in charge the 
atoms of the substances that now appear in world-forms. 
The chosen paths of these forces are not straight lines, 
but circles ; their chosen forms are not many-sided figures, 
but spheres. Their true measures are from centers of rest 
to orbital paths of motion. Their units are atoms and 
the dual balanced lines of the sunbeam and the oppo- 
sitely moving lines of the electric current. 

As we have referred to the power of the magnet as rest- 
ing within the creative energy of the current flowing 
through the encircling wire of the magnet, and the power 
of the entire magnetic field, as a revelation of strength 
from the same source of power, it becomes necessary to 
emphasize the fact that orbital currents are first things in 
Nature's lines of motion. The backward flow of the elec- 
tric current is always equal to its forward flow, and there 
is neither a forward or backward flow without a completed 
circuit, and a completed circuit is an orbital line partaking 
of the elements of a circle. Hence, the electric current 
works so kindly in the electro magnet, and delivers its 
strength so persistently to straight lined currents in mag- 
nets that centralize force and act and react on radial lines. 

A magnetic sphere as constructed out of magnets and cir- 
cles, would have all of its radial lines magnets, and all of its 
curved lines electrical currents; hence a gravital force is 
a magnetic force, and binds magnets to magnets, while a 
repulsive orbital force is an electrical force that creates mag- 
netic bodies and adjusts all paths of sympathetic inter- 
course between them in obedience to gravital bindings. 



THE MYSTERIES OF THE MAGNET. 57 

The behavior of magnets in the field of a passing cur- 
rent is seen in the phantom of its creation, under filings 
given in Fig. 4. At the right and left of the passing cur- 
rent the filings have left a light field from which they have 
gone at the bidding of the current, and have laid them- 
selves at rest at right angles to the passing current. Were 




Fig. 4. 
the current bent into the form of a circle, all of the filings 
would rest on the current as radial lines would cut it. 
Such magnets increased in length and strength would 
become radial to the circle and extend outward to the 
field of space influenced by the passing current. 

It should be kept in mind that currents create, and that 
all magnetic lines of attraction are simply centralizing po- 
tencies created and controlled by, electrical orbital currents 
that are from the great deep of infinite space. These cur- 
rents are held to the ponderable magnetic body of sun or 
planet by magnetic attraction, while they at every point 
of their flow as currents tend to pass outward from the 
body, as a stone held by a string when swung around the 
head would tend at every point of motion to pass outward 



58 THE MYSTERIES OF THE MAGNET. 

from the restraint of the string. But as the radial mag- 
netic attractions are exact balances of electric current 
repulsions at every point in the electro-sphere of forces, 
and, as radial attractions are, within the sphere, measured 
by the mass of the ensphered body of the planet, it follows 
that the electro-sphere of forces around a gravital body 
hold it evenly balanced upon its pivotal center of revolu- 
tion, and at the same time, to its path of motion around 
the sun. 

When we gain such a conception of an electro-sphere of 
forces surrounding each revolving world, and of the grand 
potencies that these forces reveal in their joint combina- 
tions around a magnetic or gravital body, then the grand 
mysteries of planetary velocities will be solved, not as in 
the schools, by central forces, but by the grand flow of 
electric orbital forces from infinite sources of power in free 
space. 

The machinery of the heavens is driven by power applied 
from the grand moving currents of virgin matter in space, 
as the ponderous water wheel is driven by currents of the 
waterfall applied to the periphery of the wheel, or perhaps 
as if an invisible power were applied to the rim of a 
ponderous balance wheel, depriving it of weight and im- 
parting a grand velocity of motion from itself. 

In such an electro-sphere of forces as I have here 
sketched we can readily detect the presence of that agency 
that gives circular waves around a stone cast into the water 
or around a disturbed center in the atmosphere, giving 
vibratory waves of sound, or waves of illumination around 
a burning body, or of heat moving out from a glowing fire 



THE MYSTERIES OF THE MAGNET. 59 

through the atmosphere, while cold waves of air move 
toward the burning center. 

We also learn from this electro-magnetic balance of the 
forces, that gravity in no case and in no place, either 
upon sun or planet, can become a crushing force hostile 
to organization or to the most delicate living form of 
being. I think that the specific gravity of the sun and 
planets demands a new system of weighing at the hands of 
the philosophers of the coming age. 

In gathering up the thoughts suggested by this survey of 
the field of forces, under the command of electro-magnetic 
forces, we think we are justified in affirming : 

i. That electricity reveals in its currents of energy, 
evidence of its commanding sovereignty over the sources 
of all power, and the material causes of all motion. 

2. That the right angled force imparted to all planet- 
ary bodies in their path of motion is from space, and 
causative of the force of gravital attraction. 

3. That all planetary motion is under the guidance of 
these companion forces, and that radial attraction and 
orbital repulsion are exact balances of each other at any 
point that may be taken, from the ponderable body of a 
planet to the extreme limits of its electro-sphere of forces. 

4. The electro-sphere of forces holds the solid sphere 
of sun or planet on balanced centers within such electro- 
sphere, and magnetic or gravital relations between sun 
and planets is wholly determined by the mutually attract- 
ing combined forces of their electro-sphere. 

Each body is weighed and nicely balanced by its own 
environed force currents, and hence the velocity of each 



60 THE MYSTERIES OF THE MAGNET. 

planet in its own orbit of motion is determined by the 
closed circuits of orbital forces that flow around the cen- 
tral body around which it revolves. 

5. In the grand electro-sphere of the sun the dead 
weight of the planets is eliminated from the problem of 
planetary motion and transferred to the problem of (he 
forces, and the problem of the forces is solved in the 
nicely adjusted balances of the currents of force at every 
point in their fields of energy and motion. 

The planets move in their orbits as freely and as silently 
as light in its grand streams of radiance. The velocity of 
the planets in their orbits is no more wonderful than the 
transmission of thought in symbols of impulse along our 
lines of telegraph. 

In the field of the forces distances between magnetic 
centers of organic bodies of matter are reduced to insig- 
nificant measures. Impulses of energy pass between sun 
and earth in eight minutes of time by scientific measure- 
ments. This brings the two bodies into the closest sym- 
pathy. In fact, they both have their place in the same 
environment of forces, and are thrilled by the same pulses 
of sensation, and are bound each to each by the closest 
ties of likeness and reciprocal unity. As atoms fraternize 
with atoms, and currents of energy with currents of energy, 
so worlds sympathize with words, and in the closest bonds 
of unity keep each other company in their paths of motion. 

By these same forces in lines of telegraphy, England 
and America signal each other as if in speaking distance, 
and by means of the telephone friends talk with friends 
hundreds of miles distant as if they were in their imme- 
diate presence. 



CHAPTER IV. 
GKAVITATION. 

THE solar system is composed ot revolving world s 
which have taken on form and motion under the 
commanding presence of some natural potency that fixes 
their centers of revolution and orbits of motion, while it 
imparts to them a perpetual energy that gives to the entire 
system of worlds a perfection of order and harmony of 
velocities that proclaims their evolution out of the eterni- 
ties past, and their perpetuity commensurate with the 
eternities to come. The power that upholds worlds and 
revolves them as the wheels of working machinery are 
revolved in the shop of the mechanic, must be eternal and 
infinite. It must have an all-pervading presence and uni- 
form directing sovereignty over matter in all of its states 
and lines of motion, and must antedate matter in all 
organic forms and have been present with the light at the 
dawn of creation's first morning. As there could be no 
creative work till light appeared, so there could be no sun- 
systems of worlds before the flying spheres of organic 
matter took up their lines of curvelinear motion. 

Such sovereign material potency is now recognized as 
the upholder and guide of satellites and planets in their 
varied revolutions and orbits of motion, as the power of 
gravitation. It has been assumed that this power is an 
emanation from organic bodies of matter that in some 
mysterious manner takes hold of other bodies of matter so 



62 GRAVITATION. 

as to attract each other mutually, with an intensity pro- 
portioned to the mass of such bodies directly, and as the 
squares of distance separating them inversely. 

This assumption of rays of gravital influence going out 
as radial lines from one organic body of matter to another 
as an attracting medium between such bodies, has wrought 
constant confusion in the minds of scientific thinkers, and 
has given place to problems respecting light and gravity, 
that according to such assumption defy solution. The 
radiation of energy to accumulate energy in one body, 
that shall act as an attracting influence over other bodies, 
gives the absurd problem of the sun's radiation of light 
and heat to all planetary bodies, while he holds all such 
bodies to their orbits of motion by attractions that are as 
constant and enduring as the ages. 

It is difficult to tell how the sun has gained his vast pro- 
portions and commanding influence over a system of 
revolving worlds while enveloped in an ocean of flame fed 
from the burning elements that have from some mysterious 
presence been fashioned into the sun's body preparatory 
to the kindling of the fires that are now burning for the 
convenience of a few satellites and planets. 

Leaving these assumptions and problems of the schools 
respecting gravitation, I pass to notice the lines that 
gravital forces have fixed as a unified sovereignty over the 
sun and planetary bodies, giving them form and orbits ot 
motion, constituting the solar system. 

And first, the chosen lines of gravital forces are revealed 
in the spherical forms of sun and planets ; and second, in 
their circular paths of motion. 



GRAVITATION. 63 

The laws of motion impressed upon all bodies of matter 
are clearly revealed in their chosen centers of rest and 
curvelinear lines of motion. The great circles enclosing 
a sphere have all points that may be taken within them, a 
uniform distance from the center of the sphere, and the 
measure of one of the circles enclosing the sphere is the 
measure of all circles possible drawn around it. All right 
lines elementary to the construction of a sphere are radial 
lines drawn from the center of the sphere to points in the 
great circles in the perimeter of the sphere, and such 
radial lines extending indefinitely into space give the right 
lines of gravital impulse that all bodies of matter describe 
when let fall upon the earth. Now the astronomical 
measurements of gravital impulse are all determined upon 
radial lines joining the centers of two or more bodies in 
motion, and it has been discovered that such impulse is 
the same on all radial lines, disclosing a unity of pressure 
closing down around each world sphere, such pressure 
increasing toward the enclosed body according to gravital 
law. 

Thus we find that the impulse or pressure of gravitation 
takes on the form of a sphere around each planetary body 
with its center the same as that of the enclosed body of 
organic spherical form ; hence the impressing gravital 
sphere and the inclosed planetary sphere are bound to- 
gether in a unity of form and pervaded by a unity of im- 
pulse. The same radial lines of central forces, and the 
same great circles of spherical boundaries are common to 
both the inclosed planetary body and the inclosing sphere 
of gravital forces. The inclosing gravital sphere is a ma- 



64 GRAVITATION. 

terial structure built out of vibrating lines of radial and 
right angled circular forces, that submits to the measuring 
line of distances and the computation of numbers as does 
the inclosed earthly structure of the planet, and must be 
exalted to its true place of sovereignty, as matter, over 
the suns and planetary bodies, that are revealed to the eye 
of the astronomer, before the perplexing problems of light, 
heat, world formation and planetary motion can find sat- 
isfactory solutions. 

The sun's gravital sphere holds within its radial lines of 
restraining pressure, called attraction, bounded by the 
great circles of his spherical form, all the planetary bodies 
of the solar system with all of their varied paths of motion. 

The sun's light pervades this entire gravital sphere 
reaching to Neptune, causing satellites and planets to 
evolve light and heat from their own environments of 
gravital pressure and velocities of revolution and motion 
as does the sun from the disturbance of gravital forces by 
the grand velocities of the planets in their orbits within 
his own gravital environing sphere. 

Within the sun's gravital sphere there appears an asso- 
ciation of planetary bodies, each having a separate identity 
with separate organic forms and individualized centers of 
rest and paths of motion ; while each organic sphere must 
also be surrounded with its body of gravital impulse simi- 
lar to that of the sun. Over this entire system of worlds, 
gravitation and light preside as co-working sovereignties, 
imparting from their material lines of energy to each plan- 
etary body of the solar system its individuality of form, 
strength and its power of illumination. 



GRAVITATION. 65 

Once more let it be noticed that each gravital sphere of 
force-currents finds its measure in the organic body of 
matter in which its radial lines of force-currents find their 
center. Directly as mass and inversely as the squares of 
distance, gives the true law of measure for all gravital im- 
pulses. It is thus, because gravitation first builds from 
atomic centers to organic spherical bodies, and such bodies 
give the measuring unit of the impressing gravital spheres 
within which they are centrally bound. In other words 
the organic body of the planet is saturated by gravital 
energy to the full measure of its capacity to receive, from 
the radial lines of gravital pressure that converge upon 
the common gravital center of the inclosed and inclosing 
spheres. 

The organic planetary body is as transparent to lines of 
gravital energy as the atmosphere is to rays of light. In 
fact, the organic matter that is built into the body of the 
planet is simply a materialization of gravital forces bound 
together and assorted into various substances by chemical 
affinities and held in place under converging lines of grav- 
ital pressure. As the life is superior to the form inclosing 
it so is the gravital material environment that incloses a 
planetary body and saturates it with energy superior to 
such body. 

In making these assumptions I am not going a single 
line beyond the teaching of the schools. I recognize the 
same radial lines of gravital impulse — the same planetary 
spheres— the same great spherical boundaries of gravital 
impulse in which the planets take up their circular orbits 
of motion — the same mathematical problems that pertain 



66 GR A VIT ATION . 

to astronomical measurements and influence of sun and 
planets over each other in the grand harmonies of plane- 
tary motion ; but where Sir Isaac Newton saw attraction of 
gravitation pulling an apple to the ground I think I see 
gravital pressure pushing it to the earth. Where he saw 
void space across which bodies attracted each other, I 
think I see well defined and perfectly constructed spheres 
of gravital and orbital force-currents of virgin matter 
closing down around each revolving world and filling in- 
ter-planetary space, through which they take up their paths 
of motion, bound each to each in bands of sympathy and 
mingling their rays of light and lines of an invisible grav- 
ital presence in a common solar unity. 

Where Newton, looking back to a creative beginning, 
saw chaotic masses of matter either at rest or moving in 
straight lines, dead and inert, without power to set them- 
selves in motion, and when set in motion having no power 
to stop; I think I see the companion material sovereignties 
of light and gravity compassing all space, holding all ele- 
ments of matter in their lines of radiant energy, choosing 
centers of rest, and building world-spheres around such 
centers — building from themselves. 

While the great philosopher found it necessary to invent 
the great problem of the parallelogram of forces to aid 
thought respecting Nature's methods of converting straight 
line motion under the dead force of inertia into orbital 
circles under the living gravital forces of attraction, I find 
no necessity for any such problem, for the material circles 
of gravital impulse are all mathematical circles, every pos- 
sible radial line cutting them touches the circle at a uni- 



GRAVITATION. 67 

form distance from the center of the circle, and all such 
points of contact give the conception of a mathematical 
point in motion at a uniform distance from the center of 
the circle around which it moves. There are no straight 
lines in either circles or spheres except radial lines. Straight 
lines cannot, even in imagination, give the conception of 
their construction into curved lines bounding the circle. 

Finally, while the fall of an apple impressed the mind 
of Newton with the necessity of some occult force acting 
upon the apple pulling it to the earth, he was not impressed 
with the necessity of any such force in free space impell- 
ing the planets in their orbits across gravital attracting 
lines of force, each with a uniform velocity that finds no 
retarding influences in all the hitherto time periods of the 
ages. 

Let the reader here note that while the lines are sharply 
drawn between the philosophy of our best scientific teachers 
and the philosophy of these papers, the writer cannot pos- 
sibly detract from the deserved reputation of the old mas- 
ters. The wonderful discoveries of the present age have 
led the way toward advanced positions of scientific thought, 
and the present papers are but little more than interpreters 
of such new discoveries. 

If a new philosophy come into place discarding old 
errors, it must be an evolution from data furnished by the 
wonderful scientific discoveries of the present age. Old 
errors in physics must fade away in the light of new truths. 



CHAPTER V. 
GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 

BY conceiving of organic matter and gravital forces as 
forming two concentric spheres, the former built 
from and by the latter and held centrally in its radial lines 
of force currents with an equal pressure upon, or along, 
each gravital line that can be let fall upon the organic body, 
we gain a standpoint of observation that will enable us to 
look with a clear vision into the sublimest wonders of 
creation's laboratory of material unfoldment. 

But shall we leave at once the teachings of our schools 
that have been wrought into our intellectual being, im- 
pressing upon our minds the belief that gravital attracting 
forces going out from the sun in some mysterious manner, 
holding the planets to their circular orbits, are the sover- 
eign cause of planetary motion? Shall we discard at once 
the thought that the worlds were made by an omnipotent 
hand, hurled into space in straight lines, and that the 
inertia of matter has kept them circling around central 
suns, keeping time for the ages ? 

Had we dared to part company with these thoughts in 
our childhood it would have banished some childish fears 
lest inertia should grow tired and our earth would fall into 
the sun and be burned up, like scientific meteors, to light 
and heat other worlds. 

It is the deisre of the writer that the reader will stand 



GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 69 

firmly by the old theories of attraction of gravitation until 
he is able to reverse thought in the study of the problem, 

That, Gravitation centralizes energy in the creation, 
or evolution, of matter in organic forms, that as units, 
they may hold their place and act their fart in the 
grand groupings of a universal creative unity. 

I care not how narrow or how broad the field of vision 
brought under the eye of the thoughtful pupil, the problem 
will afford its own solution. The mustard seed and the 
acorn are fashioned by the same forces that build world 
spheres, and the plumb lines of gravity hold all created 
objects in place, and give to all objects a distinct person- 
ality and a living environment. 

I introduce these thoughts that we may gain conceptions 
of gravitation from our own field of measures and experi- 
ences. The astronomer with his telescope directed to 
Jupiter, and his eye on the glass, observing his phenomena, 
finds lines of gravity holding intercourse between the great 
sphere of the planet and the little eyeball of the philoso- 
pher. 

But it is earth gravity that saturates the eye to its com- 
pleteness of pressure that gives to all eyeballs the sense of 
vision. The gravital spheres of earth and Jupiter thrill 
with responsive sensations, each to each, and such sensa- 
tions are imparted to each organic body within the organic 
forms of their respective planetary bodies, while through 
the varied material organisms composing the bodily struc- 
tures of the two planets, each atom within them is reached 
by gravital sensory impulses. Individuality of form and 
identity of being are creations under the centralizing touch 



70 GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 

of gravital forces, grouping sensitive atoms into various 
substances, and such substances into the infinitesimal forms 
of organic matter, and the infinitely varied forms of veg- 
etable and animal life. Thus the great, universal and all 
pervading forces of gravity become a material providence 
over every individuality of form and being, and as gravital 
impulse is instantaneous in its action and reaction between 
bodies of matter, rest and motion, among gravitally bound 
bodies in the solar system, may be cancelled from the 
problem of planetary changes. The bodies are actually at 
rest while relatively in motion. 

Gravitation makes no record of distances. It gives fixed 
centers of rest to all planetary bodies in free space, and 
binds body to body by mutual central reactions between 
them, thus annihilating distance within the solar system, 
grouping all planetary bodies within the system in one 
gravital sphere of unified force currents having the center 
of the sun the center of the sphere, while responsive im- 
pulses of gravity within the solar sphere all blend in har- 
monious unity, rest, silence, cold and darkness dominating 
over all. The planets, with their satellites, fulfill their 
time periods of revolution with mathematical accuracy, 
under the action and reaction of gravital force currents, 
insomuch that seconds are not lost or time hastened in the 
great circles of the ages. 

Strange that scientific teachers should talk of burned 
out suns or wrecked and dying worlds ! Strange that such 
order should come out of grand world burnings ; or that 
scientific prophets should teach the childish stories of 
central fires either in sun or planets. 



GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 71 

Before we can reach correct conclusions respecting the 
relations existing between gravital impulse and planetary 
motion, certain fundamental truths respecting the nature 
and methods of gravitation as a creative and moving 
energy operating through and around matter, should be 
clearly fixed in the mind. 

i. The source of gravital energy is free space. Wher- 
ever worlds appear, there gravitation finds its home and 
reveals its presence in the fashioning, upholding, enlight- 
ening and revolving them. Not a point can be fixed in 
space where gravital energy is not ; hence it is not trans- 
ferable from place to place because its control of matter 
in bodily form is complete and commanding. The cen- 
ter of all organic bodies of matter are gravital centers, 
while rest or motion is under the control of gravital cur- 
rents of force. Gravity comes from no whither, and goes 
to no whence. No ether of the scientist can either help 
it or hinder it in its work. 

2. The energy of gravitation is the energy of elemental 
atoms of matter that take on the forms of linear vibrating 
currents of force, and thus pervade both matter and space. 

3. The central lines of force-currents that represent 
radial lines of pressure in all gravitally charged bodies, are 
complemented by lateral or right angled lines of pressure 
that become currents of impulse of equal lateral strength 
or tensity to the radial lines of impulse, at equal distances 
from the fixed gravital center of the body ; hence the 
formation of spherical bodies of matter under the impress 
of gravital forces, and the circular paths of motion of the 
planets within the sun's gravital sphere of forces. 



72 GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 

These orbital, or right-angled currents of force are as 
fixed and definite in their currents of impulse around the 
sun and his planets, respectively, as are the radial lines of 
currents that become plumb lines of pressure upon such 
bodies. The pressure toward and'around the central sun 
is the same at every point in the planet's orbit of motion. 

4. Transmission of pressure or impulse between the 
sun and his planets is not by means of the interference of 
currents of force between the various bodies, but each 
body becomes a unit of aggregated impulses, centrally 
bound and centrally unified, and hence their influence is 
confined to a single radial line joining the respective cen- 
ters of the solar system in a social compact of revolving 
worlds ; each world commanding its own field of impulses 
of gravital energy, and each world evolving its own light, 
heat, moisture and life from the environing field where 
they appear. In short, gravital forces can not do work 
where they are not, and consequently at any point taken 
within a gravital sphere the pressure is equal to the math- 
ematical measuring lines of such gravital sphere. The 
pressure at the surface of the earth at sea level is the same 
at all points that may be taken on the earth, and on all 
plumb-lines extending outward from such points the pres- 
sure is the same at equal distances from the earth. This 
gives us the law of gravital pressure, which is directly as 
mass and inversely as the cube of distance — not ' - square 
of distance," as taught in the schools — for, spheres are to 
each other as the cubes of their radii. 

By consulting this law we find that the earth's mass is 
an exact measure of the pressure of the gravital field of 



GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 73 

forces environing it, and such environing field decreases 
in pressure as distances and radial lines from the body in- 
crease, until the environing sphere gives pressure upon the 
earth equal to the gravity or weight of the earth's mass. 

Fix these thoughts in mind and then it will be seen that 
each body of the solar system is upheld and balanced in 
space upon and from its own gravital center. 

When this standpoint of thought is gained, and we refer 
to the orbits of the planets, and find that the area of each 
orbit is fixed by a radial line joining the center of the 
planet to the center of the sun, and that the velocity of 
the planet is so evenly balanced as to time periods, that 
its radial line joining the two bodies, moves over equal 
areas in equal time-periods ; then it follows that the ve- 
locity of the planet in its orbit is an even balance at each 
point in its orbit of motion of the unit of pressure of the 
sun's radial line of pressure toward his own gravital center. 

This velocity is the centrifugal force of the schools and 
is at each point of motion a tendency of the planet to fly 
outward from its orbit, such tendency having been ascribed 
to the inertia of the matter composing the body of the 
planet. 

It may aid thought if we vary our methods of dealing 
with the problem of the forces that constitute the gravital 
sphere of forces, to call lines of radial pressure, lines of 
magnetic condensation and lines of orbital pressure, lines 
of diffusion, and the two forces that these radial and orbital 
lines represent as balancing forces at any point in a sphere 
of forces that may be taken. 

Radial central forces give aggregating centers of rest, 



74 GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 

while orbital forces of diffusion give the carrying lines of 
the forces in free space. 

In the charge of these forces, atomic forms of matter 
divide themselves, giving rest and motion, building matter 
into organic forms and balancing worlds in motion as 
evenly as the lines of light are balanced between sun and 
earth. 

In the charge of these balancing forces there is.no rest 
without motion, and no motion without rest. Darkness 
and light, cold and heat, growth and decay, organic forms 
of matter having life and enfolding life-germs, and life- 
germs unfolding into life-forms, are all dependent upon 
the action and reaction of these jointly working forces. 

With this seeming digression that we have introduced 
for the purpose of better acquainting the reader with the 
true cause of the centrifugal forces of planetary motion, 
we would refer to the actual velocity of the planets in their 
orbits of motion around the sun, in confirmation of the 
outward pressure of curvelinear or orbital currents of force 
acting over against central radial currents of pressure, 
constituting the closed orbits of the planets in their order 
of motion around the sun. 

It is clearly evident that the velocity of each planet in 
its orbit indicates the measure of pressure acting upon the 
body to drive it outward from the body of the sun into 
space. 

Now, by referring to the table of planetary velocities, 
we find Mercury, the planet nearest the sun, has a velocity 
of 105,330 miles per hour. Venus, the next in order, 
moves at the rate of 77,050 miles per hour, while our 



GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 75 

earth only travels at the rate of 65,533 miles per hour. 
Thus the velocities of the planets in their orbits continue 
to decrease as their distances from the sun increase until 
Neptune, the outmost planet from the sun, has a velocity of 
only 11,968 miles. Thus as gravital pressure toward the 
sun is greatest at the sun's body and decreases as the 
squares of distance outward increase, so does the centrifu- 
gal pressure of each planet in the series decrease, causing 
each planet to move in a closed orbit, and in fixed time 
periods. 

The mean velocity of each planet in its orbit continues 
the same, age after age, because it is held in the constant 
charge of central pressure toward the sun, and outward 
pressure into free space. The central pressure of force 
currents upon a planet in its orbit make it a unit of force, 
and fix its center of revolution, while the outward pressure 
of the circular currents of force cause the planet to revolve 
on its axis. These radial and orbital currents of force 
constitute the gravital sphere that holds each revolving 
world in charge, and from which all power in matter giving 
rest and motion, is derived. 

These companion forces individualize the sun and the 
planetary bodies of his system of worlds and also group 
them in one comprehensive gravital sphere of reciprocal 
sympathy and perpetual harmony. 

Each planet of the solar system acts upon each one of 
the family of planets and also upon the central sun as a 
unit, and the central radial line extending from center 
to center of the influencing bodies is the measure of the 
unit of influence that they reciprocally exert over each 



76 GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 

other. Confining the thought to the gravital ties that 
bind earth to sun and sun to earth, it will be noticed 
that along the radial line joining the center of the sun to 
the center of the earth there is fixed the center of the earth's 
hemisphere of light and heat. This line always marks the 
culminating point of the sun's illuminating power upon 
the earth. Where this point touches the earth there is the 
noon of an unending day. The unit of the earth's revolu- 
tion measures the unit of light and heat that the earth 
receives from the sun, and the unit of the earth's motion 
in her orbit during a single revolution, gives the unit of 
the earth's area of daily motion in her orbit around the 
sun ; with this radial line of the earth's orbit a constant 
measure of the earth's gravital ties binding her to the cen- 
tral sun, giving the closed orbit, that gives the unit of 
years that fixes the measuring line of the eternities, both 
past and to come. 

That sun and earth should thus be bound to each other 
by reciprocal units of influence, measured by the coincid- 
ing radial lines of the sun and earth ; and that these coin- 
ciding lines should give the uniform distance of the earth 
from the sun in its orbit, must be accounted for as a grand 
factor in the problem of gravital potencies. There must 
be a grand working unity of gravital force currents to give 
units of work. We note the units of work in the uni- 
formity of light and the time periods of the earth's revo- 
lution ; we know that the area of the earth's motion in 
her orbit is measured in time periods, by the area passed 
over by this line joined as it is at all times to the center 
of the earth, touching as it does the center of the earth 



GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 77 

and the line of the earth's orbit of motion, and, also, the 
center of the sun at the center of the orbit ; but we do 
not seem to know, except in a general way, referring all to 
attraction of gravitation, how the work is done. But at 
the earth's distance from the sun there is a unit expression 
of two lines of force acting in harmony, and yet one act- 
ing over against the other. A unit of attraction pulls the 
earth toward the sun, while a unit of repulsion carries the 
earth at right angles to central attractions with a repelling 
force equal to such attractions. 

We have endeavored in these papers to note the work- 
ing unity of these two forces in all displays of gravital or 
electro-magnetic energy. 

By referring to the chapter on magnetism it will be seen 
that the magnet reveals power in the combination of 
radial attracting currents of force with repellant currents 
of force crossing the magnet at right angles. A passing 
current of electricity will compel a magnetic needle to 
take up its position at right angles to the passing current. 
In a magnet the electric currents moving around it must 
be of equal strength to its power of attraction ; extending 
outward from the central line of the magnet, creating a 
magnetic field unified and complete from pole to pole of 
the magnet. 

The unit of power or force of such magnet is chiefly 
revealed at the poles, and at such poles is of equal strength. 
Such magnets only serve as a connecting couple between 
electrified bodies of matter when they are of opposite 
electrical states. Like poles repel each other, while unlike 
attract. Now we have in mind the central tie binding 



78 GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 

each planet to the center of the central sun ; and the 
forces that preside over planetary motion find their unit 
of work always submitting to this measuring line of the 
planets' area of motion in its orbit, and also fixing its time 
periods of revolution that give the working days of crea- 
tion aud the circling years of the eternities of perpetual 
continuance. 

Thus the problems of light, heat, gravity and planetary 
revolution must find their solution in the enfolded poten- 
cies of this radius-vector of astronomical science. It is 
the base line of all astronomical measurements, both of 
distance and magnitude ; even planetary velocities find 
their limits of measure in the units of potency that remain 
constant grouped around this flying radial line of each 
planet's orbit of motion. The action and reaction of the 
sun's gravital influence over the planets find their complete 
expression at the terminal points of the radius-vector. In 
like manner the radial gravital pressure of each body is 
centered upon the same terminal points. 

Now we have already regarded the forces of gravitation 
as the centralizing and orbital currents of force of an 
electro-magnetic field of forces in spherical form centered 
at the center of the organic body. We now have to con- 
sider the behavior of gravitally charged bodies over each 
other within a common gravital field of forces. The radius- 
vector, then, seems to unify the gravital energy that holds 
the two worlds in charge. The unit of influence of sun 
and earth over each other, gives the unit of energy that 
at every mathematical point along this radius-vector is 
constant. This is the normal line of magnetization join- 



GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 79 

ing center to center of the magnetic or gravital fields of 
the two influencing bodies; such line having position, but 
neither magnitude nor rest. It is simply the constant 
expression of the magneto-electric energy of a constant 
field of force currents. The two world spheres at its ter- 
minals are vast magnets with their magnetic fields inter- 
sphereing each other. If one accept the teachings of 
science this line represents the reciprocal gravital attrac- 
tion of the bodies over each other, consequently the sun 
terminal of the line expresses the attraction of the sun 
upon the earth, while the earth terminal represents the 
attraction of the earth upon the sun. 

These terminals are, then, similar to the poles or termin- 
als of a bar magnet. They are of equal potential and are 
immersed in fields of equal potentials ; we consequently 
conclude that the radius-vector of a planet's orbit has its 
magnetic field of force currents revolving around it giving 
it both position and power with the position of rest and 
motion that polar forces give to the axial line joining them 
in each magnetically charged planetary body. Thus the 
radius-vector becomes the axial line of a field of gravital 
energy having a magnetic field of force currents grouped 
around it as real as those grouped around the organic 
spheres of earth and sun. This gravital field of the radius- 
vector constitutes a field of spherical forces that is an 
exact measure of the reciprocal influences that sun and 
earth exert over each other. It has its line of rest in the 
great plane of the ecliptic. Its measures of attraction 
between the two bodies fix the orbital line of the earth's 
distance from the sun, and its area of motion is an exact 



80 GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 

measure of the sun's repellent field of energy exerted upon 
the earth within her orbit of motion. In short, the unit 
of influence that the sun and earth exert over each other 
is grouped around the flying line of the radius-vector as 
gravital forces are grouped around the organic bodies of 
sun and earth. This intervening grouping of a gravital 
organism of force currents between sun and earth around 
a central line joining the center of the two bodies, sim- 
plifies the problem of gravital potencies, and renders clear 
to intellectual vision the restful states of organic bodies, 
while in their relations to each other they take up veloci- 
ties in fixed paths of motion that transcend all sensible 
measures. 

Like a magnet this intervening central line joining the 
centers of sun and planets, finds its energy of attraction or 
pressure greatest at its terminals or poles at the rest centers 
of the two gravitally bound bodies, and diminishing out 
ward from such center still the rest center of the inter 
vening field of gravital forces is reached. Thus the cen 
ters of the two world spheres are at rest, and held at res 
by a unit of pressure or attraction that remains constant 
So at each point in the line of central binding the attrac 
tion is constant and restful, only measured by distance 
from the influencing planetary body. The intervening 
field of forces has a fixed center of rest at equal distances 
from sun and earth, and groups the gravital forces between 
the two spheres in a gravital sphere of unit strength as real 
and enduring as the gravital spheres that hold sun and 
earth in charge. This sphere of organic force currents is 
constantly changing from radial line to radial line of the 



GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 81 

earth's orbit, as its axial line of energy, while its field of 
organic force currents remains constant through the con- 
stantly acting inductive influence of sun and earth upon 
each other. The forces centered in sun, earth and radius- 
vector, remain constant because the field of the forces 
through which the planets move is a uniform field of cur- 
rent energy, while each rest center gives unity to the field 
of forces that environ it, and seeming rest to all planetary 
bodies in their orbits of motion. Each planetary body is 
held at rest in its field of unified currents of force, while 
the forces that environ it take on the velocity of the light 
and hold all gravitally charged bodies so nicely balanced 
on their centers of revolution that the rocky foundations 
of suns and planets are built securely around them. 

If any student of physical phenomena questions the 
solution of the problem of planetary motion here given 
let such a one experiment with magnets and currents of 
electricity and mark their behavior in a common field and 
it will appear that they always combine their strength by 
flowing at right angles to each other. Currents of elec- 
tricity flowing around a bar of soft iron induce magnetism 
in the iron, revealing its attracting energy at the terminals 
of the bar. 

Neither magnetic attractions nor electrical repulsions 
are revealed except in these natural bindings each to each 
around a common center. Separate from each other they 
do no work, hence those forces must thus have their com- 
bination around the radius-vector to make it the unit 
measure of gravital attraction between sun and earth. 

The old ideas of lines of light, or lines of gravity, of 



82 GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 

more than ninety-two millions of miles in length passing 
from body to body conveying light and gravital energy, 
must be abandoned. The presence of such ideas in the 
mind of the writer will find expression in the pages of this 
work resulting from old conceptions of light and gravity, 
and it is a seeming necessity that we adhere to old methods 
of thought in the revelation of new truths. It is in the 
infinite divisibility of light, suited to the infinity of objects 
that are touched by its radiance, that we must look for 
correct conceptions of its linear structure. 

The eye takes in light as a unit of expression with its 
central line of sensation, as the earth takes it in with her 
central line joining the center of earth and sun, giving 
it a constant noonday measure of light. As the gravital 
or magnetic strength of the earth is the measure of its unit 
of light and heat from the sun, so is the eye the measure 
of the light and heat taken in from- the sun, giving the" 
sensation of vision. 

The transmission of the energy of light and gravity from 
sun to earth and earth to sun thus becomes a mere balance 
of forces maintained between the two bodies by the mag- 
netic strength of the central line joining them to each 
other as magnets. The smaller magnetic body becomes 
the measure of magnetic strength, or illumination it will 
receive. 

The same law of intercommunion exists between all 
organic bodies as to their reception of gravity or light. 
Such bodies do not receive rays of light or gravity by im- 
pact, but from internal sensory disturbances of light forces 
and gravital forces centered within them. The lines of 



GRAVITATION" AND PLANETARY MOTION. 83 

light passing through the lens of the eye only give the 
sensation of light by touching the center of magnetic sen- 
sation within the body insomuch that the entire being 
takes in the impulse and is thrilled with the sensation. 

Thus the energy of light, heat and gravity is weighed 
or measured in the electro-magnetic balances of sensation 
within the influenced organism and from the environing 
field in which the body finds place. The flying spheres 
of the solar system, the localized spheres of animal vision, 
and the sun-fashioned spheres of the mustard seed of the 
garden, are alike recipients of the universal energy of 
light, heat and gravity, in their individual fields of uni- 
versal *est and motion, while they influence each other 
along the central line of impulse joining their respective 
centers. Thus infinites of individualities are bound in 
one universal unity. Each individuality has its fixed cen- 
ter of rest in its uniform field of sustaining and governing 
potencies; and each takes in light and gravity by unit of 
sensation measured by its unit of form. 

The transference of sensation across many miles of dis- 
tance through magnetic conduction, as witnessed in the 
phenomena of the telephone, is a seeming mystery, and 
yet the connecting wire that takes up the vibrations of 
sound at one terminal of the wire, repeating them accu- 
rately to the ear at the other terminal, involves the same 
mystery that is involved in the transference of sensations 
of light from sun to earth and earth to sun along the 
gravital line of the radius-vector. The entire mystery of 
such transference of sensations is enfolded in the myste- 
rious working forces of the magnet. The magnet reveals 



&4 GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 

its unit of current vibrations, constituting its entire work- 
ing energy, alike at each pole. The entire combination of 
force currents that give to the magnet its strength, reveal 
that strength in equal polar vibrations that are responsive 
to each other, each to each, giving duplicate expressions 
of all disturbing sensations at either pole. 

Bear in mind that light, heat, gravitation, magnetism 
and electricity, are simply vibrating expressions of the 
same lines of force currents, and hence the magnetically 
charged wire of the telephone, also the gravitally charged 
line of the radius-vector speak and evolve light with a unit 
of expression, at the same unit of time at either pole of 
their unit of centrally bound forces. Thus the vibrations 
of light at the terminal of the radius-vector on the sun, 
are the same on the earth, and thus sun light and earth 
light impart the same sensations to the inhabitants of their 
respective spheres. 

The intense activity of the polar forces of the radius- 
vector on earth and sun is resisted by the non-conducting 
atmosphere of their magnetically charged bodies evolving 
light and heat on the hemispheres of the two bodies look- 
ing towards each other, while the organic structures of 
sun and earth are correspondingly thrilled by disturbed 
electro-magnetic impulses equal to revolving and warming 
them, and thereby imparting to the circulating currents of 
their solid spheres such activities as promote crystalization 
of the rocks, evolution of the oils and gases, with the 
streams of water that permeate earth-formations, as circu- 
lating life currents permeate the animal and vegetable 
structures that are built upon the earth. 



GRAVITATION AND PLANETARY MOTION. 85 

The same forces that give the light and heat of the sun 
upon the earth are also warming and creating forces within 
the earth. The revolution of the planets and the evolu- 
tion of life and form within and upon the earth and sun, 
are simply diverse expressions of the all-pervading mate- 
rial potencies that give strength to the magnet. 

If these statements are accepted, it follows that all earth 
disturbances must be referred to the working presence of 
electro-magnetic forces. 

Storms, earthquakes and volcanoes come into place by 
non-conducting forms of matter in some way resisting the 
flow of currents of electric energy between heavily charged 
bodies of matter of opposite potentials. Light, heat and 
explosive vibrations of currents giving sound, reveal the 
pathways of electro-magnetic forces. 



CHAPTER VI. 
EVOLUTION OF LIGHT. 

GRAVITATION, magnetism and electricity have hith- 
erto been but little more than names for mysterious 
dynamic potencies. Had the ancients been made ac- 
quainted with their works of marvelous power and varied 
possibilities, as we now observe them, temples and altars 
would have been erected for them, and they would have 
been regarded as chief among the gods. In fact the 
darkness and the light are both alike unto them. From 
everlasting to everlasting they are the same. Their lines 
have gone out into all worlds and they hold in their 
charge all of the orderings of a material providence over 
everything that has form or motion in all of the infinites 
of worlds. 

The forces they represent, are, in Nature invisible, and 
do their normal work in cold and darkness. They are 
not generated forces, but on the contrary are generating 
forces. They are not dependent forces, neither are they 
secondary, but elementary, both as matter and force. 
We now know that electricity and magnetism evolve 
light and heat, but as to gravitation our teachers are 
all silent. On the contrary, they teach that while gravi- 
tation holds the planets to the sun in their various orbits 
of motion, that the burning body of the sun sends out to 



EVOLUTION OF LIGHT. 87 

such planets, on radial lines all the light and heat that they 
share. In short, that the central sun commanding the 
revolutions and orbital velocities of his family of worlds, 
is constantly consumed by raging fires of the intensest 
heat, that they may be warmed and illuminated ; and 
still our cities with their shops and dwellings are now 
lighted from the cold", dark currents of electrical and mag- 
netic impulse. 

Respecting the devices for evolving and handling the 
electro-magnetic currents that feed the electric flame, I 
need only say here that they serve to intensify electric 
currents in their conducting wires, and such currents fur- 
ther intensified at the points of illumination by forcing 
their way through non-conducting mediums. 

The dynamo machines are accumulators of electric en- 
ergy that evolves light at broken points in the conducting 
wires, or where non-conducting substances are interposed 
in the circuits, that intensify the power of the currents at 
the broken terminals of the conducting wires where light 
and heat are revealed. 

These devices, in short, accumulate insensible and dark 
currents of force in conducting wires from which light 
and heat are evolved at resisting breaks in their circuits of 
motion. The light and heat thus evolved are fed from 
the flowing currents and fall upon objects of vision giving 
the sensations of illumination within a hemisphere of 
radiating impulses similar to the rays of light that go forth 
from burning bodies of matter. 

Now let the student of physical phenomena place the 
electric light in the same field with the flame-bearing com- 



88 EVOLUTION OF LIGHT. 

pounds that illuminate our dwellings, and notice the inti- 
mate fellowship existing between the cold, dark forces of 
electricity and magnetism, and light and heat, as the sov- 
ereign radiating forces of material energy. 

The electric light and the light of a candle are essen- 
tially the same while the sources from which they derive 
their power of illumination seem radically different. The 
former feeds upon resisted and broken currents of invisi- 
ble forces, while the latter feeds upon visible bodies of 
organic matter. 

But the candle has a history back of itself. If it came 
from the fat of animals, they fed upon vegetation that 
came into place under the play of sun forces and earth 
forces. From these they received life, light and heat, and 
took on form, that in the flame of illumination is passing 
back again to the field of forces whence they came. 

All organic bodies of matter that are consumed in the 
heat and light of illumination, or under the wasting pro- 
cess of oxidation, are in a transition state from the forces 
that evolve light and life to their primal home in the 
same forces, thus giving the completed circuits of life and 
death, of creation and destruction. The world's immor- 
tality is complete in these closed circuits of transforma- 
tion that have no beginning and no end. 

The data here given lead us to an acquaintance with 
light and heat as evolved radiating currents of force, flash- 
ing out from local centers where powerful resistants 
intercept the flow of cumulative and intensified electric 
currents breaking up their unity of construction and diffus- 
ing their energy on radiating lines glowing with intensi- 



EVOLUTION OF LIGHT. 89 

fled electro -magnetic impulses — such* impulses always 
unified from the disturbed centers of emanation. 

The electric light and the electric illumination of the 
storm-cloud only differ from each other in their time 
periods of continuance; the former is fed from a constant 
current of uniform flow, intercepted by constant resistance, 
evolving therefrom a constant illumination, while the latter 
is the transference ot electric energy at high tension from 
one cloud to another, or from cloud to earth through 
the non-conducting atmosphere, at a single impulse. 

It should be constantly borne in mind, that in all cases 
of electrical disturbance evoking sensible displays of 
power, the normal balance of the forces is broken by some 
resisting agency, while the work done by the forces to 
overcome such disturbance is simply- a forcible readjust- 
ment of such balances. The terms positive and negative, 
and the algebraic signs plus and minus are used by the 
electrician to denote the two different electrical condi- 
tions of bodies of matter assumed under frictional excite- 
ment. When electricity is produced by friction it is 
found invariably, that equal quantities of positive and 
negative electricity are produced. 

The normal flow of the positive and negative currents 
of electricity is in equally balanced quantities, moving in 
opposite directions. Thus flowing, they bind themselves 
to bodies of matter in units of strength, each body of 
matter thus bound having its center fixed by the central- 
izing dynamic energy of electro-magnetic balancing forces. 
This leads us to the consideration of the same concentric 
spheres under the working presence of electro-magnetic 

7 



90 EVOLUTION OF LIGHT. 

potencies that we have considered under the dynamic pres- 
sure of gravital forces. Each planetary body is not only a 
magnet but an electro-magnet. The organic matter of the 
body of the planet, that our old philosophers have called 
"brute matter" is as passive in the embrace of gravital 
and orbital currents of force as is the soft iron core of the 
electro-magnet in the circling currents of electricity that 
pa^s through the coil of insulated wire that encircles it. 

The strength of the electro-magnet comes and goes at the 
touch of the electrician who presses the keys, that make and 
break the circuit conveying energy from battery to mag- 
net. The pressure that holds the keeper to the magnet is 
solely under the command of the encircling currents of 
energy that flow around it, and such currents can only be 
brought under the charge of the electrician by mechanical 
disturbance of the dark and insensible forces of the mag- 
netically or gravitally charged earth. 

To make clear our philosophy of thought respecting 
the combination and division of the forces of the electro- 
magnet, that we regard as synonymous with gravital forces, 
including both radial and orbital forces; it must be noted 
that we are here contemplating matter in two equally bal- 
anced states, which we would denominate fixed matter 
and free matter, the former organic and magnetic, the 
latter linear and electric. 

These two states of matter are inseparable from each 

other and in all of their combinations of creative work they 

fix centers of aggregation and formulate concentric spheres 

of magnetization and electrization around such centers. 

In the combination of these two states of matter the 



EVOLUTION OF LIGHT. 91 

organic becomes restful and abiding under the pressure of 
radial magnetizing forces, while it at the same time finds 
its rest in the charge of the commanding carrying forces 
that constitute the great electrosphere of forces of linear 
matter in space. 

This electrosphere of linear vibrating force-currents is 
self-sustained and self-fashioned out of currents of ele- 
mentary matter as real as the rivers. The balance of the 
electro-magnetic current, inwrought into spherical forms 
is" so complete that, though their velocity is ss the light, 
they become restful as the ocean, and as abiding as the 
ages in their normal combinations of form and lines of 
work. Lines of gravity are the same at every point that 
may be taken upon the surface of the earth, and at any 
point that may be taken between earth and sun the grav- 
ital measure of strength has not changed since sun and 
earth were built. The light that seems to go and come 
evening and morning has continued to shed its benign in- 
fluence through the hemisphere looking toward the sun 
from the period of the earth's first revolution to the pres- 
ent time. Earth-light is a perpetual flame; it never ceases 
to burn and yet it is a constant evolution from earth cur- 
rents and sun currents. It is fed from material elements 
as truly as the lights in our dwellings. 

In confirmation of these statements we have only to 
refer to the devices now used for giving artificial supplies 
of both water and light to the inhabitants of our principal 
cities. The city of Chicago is built by the side of a vast 
fountain of pure water that is held securely within its 
banks by gravital pressure. To bring water from the 



92 



EVOLUTION OF LIGHT. 



lake in flowing currents to the dwellings and along the 
streets of the city water is lifted by the repulsive power of 
steam driving vast engines, forcing it through conducting 
pipes to an elevated artificial reservoir from which it flows 
freely by gravital. pressure, through all the water mains of 
the city to all of its inhabitants. Chicago is also built 
upon a vast sea of light giving currents of energy; such 
energy is held at rest under the grand centralizing forces 
of gravity. This vast sea of forces when disturbed by the 
sun's presence in the heavens evolves a light sufficient "to 
enlighten ail of the inhabitants of one hemisphere of the 
earth. The revolution of the earth and sun, working over 
against each other, resisted by the atmospheric envelope of 
the two rapidly revolving spheres, lift the sea of dark forces 
that are at the feet of their inhabitants up to the high tem- 
perature of the noon of day, under the controlling pres- 
ence of the noonday's sun, causing the dark forces to burst 
into a sea of flame, warming and enlightening all of the peo- 
ples of the earth alike, during a single revolution of the earth. 
This is Nature's method of both lighting and watering 
the earth ; for the fountains, of waters that are formed 
above the earth, giving clouds and centralized storms with 
their winds and rain, are lifted to their place by the same 
disturbing forces of sun and earth that give light and heat. 
But what of the night? The city of Chicago needs night 
illumination as truly as she needs flowing currents of 
water. She calls to her aid the electrician and he makes 
his plant of powerful engines and systems of conducting 
wires, and builds his high towers, or seeks elevated points 
to which he can lead off his powerful currents of force 



EVOLUTION OF LIGHT. 



93 



from his dynamo machines driven by huge balance wheels 
that are set in motion by the repellant power of steam. 
But when all these preparations are completed there is 
everything necessary for lighting the city except the light. 
Where is the fountain to be drawn upon to feed the lamps 
that are placed at the resisting breaks in the conducting 
wires, at the chosen points of illumination ? I answer, 
It is the same fountain of force currents that is drawn upon 
by the sun, to evolve the light of day. It is at the feet 
of every dweller upon the earth. It is centered in every 
eye that takes in vision from the light, and in every seed- 
germ that takes on life. Its sea level of darkness and 
rest is the same as that of the ocean ; and it must be dis- 
turbed in its place of rest in the darkness and lifted forci- 
bly through the conducting wires leading to its fixed 
points of illumination before it assumes its garments of 
light that are ample for the envelopment of the city. The 
light thus produced is self-evolved, self-lighted, having a 
fountain as exhaustless as space is immeasureable. The 
currents of force that feed the electric light are as truly 
matter, as the currents of water flowing through the water 
pipes of the city, fed from the elevated reservoirs of supply 
that are constantly replenished by the working energy of 
the huge pumping engines at the border of the lake. It 
seems strange that while our cities are abandoning candle 
and lamp, petroleum and gas, for the electric light, that 
science should continue to teach that the creator of 
worlds kindled an intensely devouring flame upon the 
surface of the sun to light the planets millions of miles 
distant in the cold and dark regions of space. 



CHAPTER VII. 

HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE EVOLVED FROM 

DISTURBED ELECTRO-MAGNETIC 

FORCES OF ENVIRONMENT. 

HEAT, light and life are joint evolutions from material 
conditions of organic matter, also from centers of 
resistance in currents of the electric forces, under high 
tension from^conduction. 

I say joint evolutions because of their joint dependence 
upon interior work performed in matter, to secure mate- 
rial conditions that report to the senses as heat, light and 
life. 

Prof. Tyndall has prepared an exhaustive treatment of 
the theme " Heat as a mode of motion" in which he 
seems to regard heat as an index, denoting the transfer- 
ence of energy through bodies of matter, doing work in 
overcoming the resistance of bodies held under the energy 
of attraction, which he styles potential energy, to the 
extreme of repulsion, which he styles dynamic energy. 

Heat, then, is an expression of energy in motion from 
attraction to repulsion, or, in other words, it is the lan- 
guage of the working energy of repulsion in bodies of 
matter overcoming the attraction that gives them organic 
or bodily form. But there is another language of trans- 
ference of energy by means of light and heat, from the 
dynamic energy of light and heat of environing space to 



HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE. 95 

the organic growths of material structures. The latter is 
the working energy of creative forces, and the sustaining 
energy of heat in doing that interior work in bodies that 
is a constant support of unfolding life forms. 

With reference to this transference of energy he says, 
"As potential energy disappears, dynamic energy comes 
into play. Throughout the universe the sum of these 
two energies is constant. ' ' 

We have, then, to simply note the two extreme points 
noted by the arc of motion of these two energies, to dis- 
cover the whence of matter and force in repulsion. Heat 
light and life, in creation of bodily forms bring matter 
from its radiant state at the low level of the cold and the 
darkness of free space to its rest in organic structures 
under the energy of attraction, and through an inverse 
order of work under the repelling energy of heat and light 
it passes back to its home in space. Thus, light, heat and 
life are the paths of the dynamic conditions of matter 
coming under the power of potential energy in body, and 
also by a reversed order of work, heat, light and extinc- 
tion of life, indicate the return of matter to its native 
radiant condition in space. 

The active work of these two grand energies of the uni- 
verse is thus revealed upon the elevated plane of light and 
heat; commencing and ending at the low level of the cold 
and the darkness. 

The great mystery of the problem is hidden with the 
silent work of these two energies, doing work in their 
elementary lines of force in the dark and cold floods of 
universal gravity that compass space, in which they guide 



96 HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE. 

and revolve the sun systems of worlds, which are the 
expression of the modes of motion of matter in charge of 
the same two energies of attraction and repulsion that 
evolve light, heat and life. The dynamic of gravital 
forces compasses all conditions of matter and all modes of 
motion. Cold and darkness, heat and light, in their 
greatest possible intensity give the limits of attraction and 
repulsion, and all of matter has its change of states, and 
its lines of motion, between these natural limits. The 
dynamic of cold is attraction, while the dynamic of heat is 
repulsion; the former are centralizing forces, the latter 
are carrying orbital forces; bodies of matter come to rest 
atom by atom, under charge of centralizing currents of 
force, while they are revolved in their orbits of motion on 
repellent currents of force. Centralizing dynamic energy 
is hidden under the dynamic states of matter in body, 
while orbital dynamic energy is hidden within the great 
cold depths of virgin matter moving freely in space; but 
these two classes of energy are companion forces bound 
each to each so that "the sum of these two energies is 
constant" and reciprocal, always conditioned by central 
bindings of matter in organic conditions. 

These two energies compass the universality of energy, 
filling all space, and holding in charge every atom of free 
matter, and every organic body of matter in all suns and 
sun systems that fill immensity; while they at the same 
time become infinitely divisible, suited to the individual- 
izing of all organizing or evolving bodies of matter whether 
crystalline, or organic having life. These two classes of 
energy individualize themselves, imparting to each indi- 



HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE. 97 

viduality an entirety of likeness that belongs to seed-germ 
and fruitage, in all the myriad lines of paternity and son- 
ship that are unfolded to philosophic experiment or to 
theological conceptions. Thus the image of the Creator 
is seen in the eternal sonship of all things that take on 
form, and in all forms having life. The division of these 
two classes of energy into potential and dynamic only 
gives sensible measures to the unseen and the immeasure- 
able. Neither of them becomes potential. They are 
both dynamic; permeating matter as freely as they com- 
pass space, always respecting the measures of aggregating 
centers, while they are both interblended and evenly bal- 
anced in all their displays of power, or in their modes of 
motion. Strictly speaking, bodies of matter do not 
attract directly as mass and inversely as square of distance; 
but the dynamic forces of matter move to, through and 
around bodies of matter with a united strength condi- 
tioned by matter in body and distance; — intensity of 
central attractions over orbital repulsions, varying inversely 
as the squares of distance. 

With this conception of the two grand energies of 
attraction and repulsion woven into each other's embrace, 
in radial and orbital impulses constituting a spherical 
network of orbital and radial currents of force, flowing 
around and toward each revolving world, it is not difficult 
to see how sun and planets are grouped in one sympathetic 
family grouping, of revolving spheres, under the charge of 
purely dynamic conditioning forces. 

Potential energy is thus eliminated from the great prob- 
lem of gravital forces, and space, cold, dark and silent, 



98 HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE. 

appears as grouped around world centers in ever-flowing 
linear streams of energy, that are the perennial source of 
virgin matter and planetary motion. 

Thus the two grand energies of space carry the great 
spheres so evenly poised upon the electro magnetic floods 
of attraction and repulsion, that all planetary motion is 
without resistance. . Sensible forms of matter are as the 
commanding presence of the dynamic forces that fashioned 
them, and have constant care of their organic unity. 

Thus it will appear that elements of matter are elements 
of the force currents that localize bodies of matter and 
preside over their modes of motion. These elements are 
in currents, electro dynamic and repellent, and magneto- 
dynamic and attractive. They constitute the balancing 
units of universal energy and conserve all displays of power 
in universal harmony. Their home is in the cold, silent 
darkness of universal space, In them heat, light and life 
find the sources of their power and the elementary lines of 
their visible continuance. Heat, light and life come into 
place through local disturbances, or local resistants to the 
harmony of these currents of dynamic energy. Out of 
these currents the cold flint and steel bring light. From 
them the rubbed sticks of the savage derives a fire that 
warms him and cooks his food. The scientist by friction 
upon the revolving disk of his electric machine gathers 
powerful electrical divided currents and performs experi- 
ments in electricity and magnetism, and he finds light 
and heat springing forth from the disturbed currents that 
proclaim the whence of their power and the what of their 
illumination. 



HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE. 99 

The oxidizing of metals in the battery gives electrical 
currents, that, interrupted in their paths of metallic con- 
duction, give light and heat. Even the rubbed ice of the 
scientist disturbs the flow of these currents to such a 
degree as to evolve heat. They are then latent heat, 
latent light, and latent sources of life and also latent 
chords of sound. 

As to the transmission of light and heat we regard them 
as always obeying the laws ol magnetic and electrical 
conduction and as, in fact, simply disturbed and illumin- 
ated electro-magnetic currents of force revealing heat and 
light where mechanical disturbance intercepts and breaks 
up their normal lines of conduction. The lines of radial 
and orbital currents surrounding and permeating every 
magnetic body are the great carrying lines of sensation 
and hence light to the eye, sound to the ear, heat to the 
body, taste to the tongue and flavor to the nostrils are 
conveyed in the vibratory currents of electro-magnetic 
impulse. Heat and light are evolved from the environ- 
ment of their field of illumination and influence. The 
light of the sun is confined to his own sphere of radiance, 
so is the light of the earth evolved at the base of its incum- 
bent atmosphere where gravital sun currents and earth 
currents meet under the disturbance of the non-conduct- 
ing atmosphere. 

The electrician carries no lighted lamp from his dynamo 
machines of propagation to his centers of illumination. 
He feeds the brilliant flames of his electric lamps with the 
dark streams of electrical impulse through conducting 
wires that convey energy but not light. It is thus that the 



100 HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE. 

closed circuits of magneto-electrical impulses between sun 
and earth and earth and sun convey energy from body to 
body in reciprocal counterflowing currents that furnish a 
constant illumination upon both earth and sun — each body 
receiving light and heat in exact proportion to the strength 
of their respective sources of magnetic energy affording as 
they do, gravital connections and battery impulses, suffi- 
cient for a perpetual evolution of both earth-light and 
sunlight. 

It should be here stated that light and heat are evolved 
from gravital attractions whether upon sun or earth, and 
that the light and heat of radiating centers are from cen- 
ters of combustion, and hence local and temporary. They 
cut no figure in the great problem of world illumination. 

The sun radiates heat and light to the limits of his illu- 
minated atmosphere and here radiation ceases. The 
planets take off energy from the sun equal to their gravital 
strength and give back to the sun through sun attractions 
as they receive. Waste of sun energy through radiation 
is simply a scientific fable. Radiating forces fade away 
in darkness while attracting forces come under currents on 
radial lines, giving light and heat from their interior work 
in bodies of matter resisting their flow. 

Thus the action and reaction, the attraction and repul- 
sion of the force currents environing matter are dominant 
over matter in all of its states and lines of motion. These 
forces of electricity and magnetism wrought into one great 
unified environment of the great world spheres uphold and 
move them as though held in the sensitive grasp of Om- 
nipotence; insomuch that planetary velocities rival the 



HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE. 101 

flying radiance of the sunbeam and sensation is as delicate 
between sun and planets as between lovers at their bridal 
altar. 

With matter in charge of these sovereign and universal 
forces there is nothing great nor nothing small. There is 
an infinite unity and infinitesimal diversity, giving an 
immeasurably grand personality of sensitive potency, divis- 
ible into distinct material personalities, each complete in 
itself and held in charge of its native environment, whether 
it be the mustard seed of the garden or the sun with its 
retinue of worlds. 

With our old ideas of matter clouding our mental vision 
we find it a difficult task to peer into the shadowy realms 
of those material creative forces that close down around 
the initial centers of all forms of being and of life, with 
the inspiring touch of an inbreathing life force giving the 
sensitive imprint of paternity to every germ of organic 
development. We have been accustomed to think of liv- 
ing forms as created and put into their environment, and 
the thought of their natural birth from their environment 
is treated by the most of our great schools of learning 
with derision. 

But the potter and the clay must come together to form 
the rudest vessels, so creative material forces must touch 
every sensitive atom that passes into organic being and 
keep the well-springs of life constantly flowing through 
all life forms. There is surely a material providence over 
all moving bodies, and all living forms of being, that is 
infinite in its outreaching measures, and finite in its every- 
where visible forms of creative work, and in its watch-care 



102 HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE. 

of everything that has life and motion. There is no life 
without gravitation binding to place, and fixing germ 
centers. There is no unfolding of buds and blossoms, 
and rearing the tender shoots of vegetable, shrub or tree 
preparing the parental home of seed germs, and thus bear- 
ing fruit for the nourishing of animal life, without the 
going and coming of sunlight and earth-light, and the 
traveling of the earth in its annual journeys around the 
sun, and its diurnal revolutions giving day and night, 
cold and heat, causing winds and clouds, evaporation and 
condensation, by means of which the earth is watered 
with raindrops, and the fountains of the rivers are kept 
constantly flowing. All forms of life must have an envi- 
ronment of living forces, as truly as a constant supply of 
food for the sustaining of life. The beginnings of life are 
to be expected in all conditions where the continuance of 
life is possible, and hence the waters and the rivers, the 
planes and the mountains, throughout the different zones 
of the earth, up to the snow line of perpetual winter, reveal 
forms of life suited to all of their varied conditions of phy- 
sical environment. The immanence of a sensory pres- 
ence pervading all bodies of matter alike, whether world 
spheres or seed germs, with their inwrapt conditions of 
life, is as self-revealing in the world of matter as is the 
indwelling presence of life in the living bodily organism. 

Life is, upon the elevated plane of the forces, where 
light, heat and moisture hold communion, a receptive 
center of atomic sensations that gives an organic continu- 
ance, as an initial beginning of a personified existence. 

It is under the centralizing dual forces of a magnetic 



HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE. 103 

field that atoms seek their affinities in the radiant glow of 
broken sun forces and earth forces, — thereby evolving light 
and heat, and a preparation for a place in organic structure. 

Life forces and life forms touch each other as co-ordi- 
nates of being, under the sensitive touch of magnetic 
attractions and repulsions, that give to all life forms their 
environment of personal sensations, that constitute person- 
ality of being. 

This environment of life that is purely an environment 
of occult material forces, must have its place around and 
permeating every living organism. It is the source of 
being and of strength, and also the cause and the courier 
of all the sensations of life. Failing to recognize this 
environing field of forces that give their attendance around 
everything having life, philosophers have failed to dis- 
cover in matter the material basis of life. 

We have already noticed the sovereignty of these forces 
over sun and planets, upholding and revolving them in 
space, and their commanding presence over all evolving 
forms of life, but we have only glanced at their working 
presence in the field of sensation, from which we acquire 
all true wisdom. 

Without the sensory touch of material forces, there is 
no language with which Nature can reveal herself to men- 
tal vision. As evidence of this it may be noted that 
there are no symbols in any divine revelation expressed in 
religious creeds, that convey thought to the soul outside 
of the cognizance of the senses. Hence, some of the vis- 
ions given us in books of popular imprint respecting a 
future life, tell us of what may be seen, heard, felt and 



104 HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE. 

enjoyed in a world of spirits, where mind is clothed in 
spirit form, as though spirit forms were enswathed in a 
material environment. Pure mental conceptions are all 
gained from the teachings of the senses. Material and 
mental forces meet together upon the plane of human con- 
sciousness. The language of the soul as told in visions, is 
the language of the here, applied to the hereafter. 

Now it becomes a query among philosophers as to 
Nature's methods of communication between the material 
and the mental within the human brain. 

The transference of sensation, as expressed in the so- 
called light of the sun, from sun to earth, unfolding to men- 
tal vision within the dark chambers of an animal brain, an 
accurate pictorial representation of every object touched by 
the light within the range of the eye; also the transference 
of sound from a disturbed center with accurate intonation, 
repeating in the ear-chambers of the brain of all animals 
within the disturbed area of sound, the exact expression at 
first uttered, though seconds may intervene between the 
uttering and receiving, or repeating, gives one of the most 
difficult problems of physical science. The wave theory 
of transmission of both light and sound, has taken too 
firm hold of the philosophy of the present age to be influ- 
enced by any criticisms from the pen of an unknown 
writer; and hence, I shall simply set over against this 
theory, the theory of central environments of force cur- 
rents, as covering the whole field of creative and transmis- 
sive potencies. 

And first, let it be noticed that light, heat and motion 
must be classified as properties of the forces, while atmos- 



HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE. 105 

phere upon earth and sun, and ether of space must be 
classified as organic matter. 

Again we have regarded light, heat, electricity, magnet- 
ism and gravity as different expressions of the dual work- 
ing forces, in matter and pervading space, of attraction 
and repulsion — equal, and mutually reacting, giving the 
central linear radial lines of attraction, and the orbital 
right angled motion of repulsion. By thus reaching the 
work of the creative and governing forces of astronomical 
science in the linear currents of the electro-magnet we 
learn that central attraction, orbital repulsion, light, heat 
and motion belong to the environing forces of the magnet. 

We also learn that the normal field of these forces, 
where they lay foundation structures and build around 
them central suns and revolving worlds, is at the low plane 
of the cold and darkness. 

Central attractions and orbital repulsions grouped in a 
net-work of forces constitute a gravital, or magnetic field 
around each revolving sphere in the sun's system of worlds, 
and thus satellites and planets are revolved and floated in 
their orbits of motion, in the charge of these forces, so 
evenly and silently that astronomers discover neither 
retardation nor discord in the sun's system of worlds 
during the ages passed. 

Thus, electro-magnetic environment is gathered around 
worlds from free space, from which also the solid spheres 
have themselves been formed under the charge of environ- 
ing forces. In short, electro-magnetic atoms are built 
into electro-magnetic spheres out of electro-magnetic space 
and environed by electro-magnetic balancing currents of 



10(5 HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE. 

force that uphold and guide them in all of their orbits of 
motion. The where and the what of both matter and its 
commanding forces are self-conditioning elements of in- 
finite space, only submitting to sensible measures in their 
mutual relations to aggregating centers of form and envi-" 
ronment. 

With these conceptions of matter and force and the 
materiality of space, sensation is mutual between organic 
bodies of matter and their environing forces. Sensations 
from space permeate bodies of matter and bodies of matter 
respond giving back sensations to space. Sunlight and 
earthlight, sun gravity and earth gravity are sensory im- 
pulses between sun and earth across the millions of miles 
of free space separating them, while the solid bodies of 
earth and sun take in such impulses and give back as they 
receive. No ether, star dust or cometary nebulous matter 
cuts any figure with such world forces, neither do any 
conflagrations rage among the waste baskets of these forces 
to make molten centers for new worlds, for they have no 
wastes, and Nature never builds out of the slag and crusts 
of matter floating on molten billows, consuming the 
spoiled work of chaos and darkness. 

The pictorial etchings of the light are secured by linear 
vibrating currents passing from object to object, touching 
every object with responsive sensations that blend into an 
environment of sensations alike to every object within the 
illuminated field. The sensations of the entire field of 
vision thus pass into the eye and give their etchings upon 
the sensitive brain, giving accurate delineations of every 
object within the range of vision at a single touch and by 



HEAT . LIGHT A N 1) L I FE . 1 ( )7 

a single impulse of the radiance of sensation which we call 
light. 

The same radiant impulses of sensation that bring light 
to the eye also bring sound to the ear, and to every ear 
within the reach of sensations from a resonant center. 

The patience of the reader may be sorely tried by the 
infelicities of language in which I have clothed my 
thoughts, but it should be noted that we are threading 
our way in new fields of mental vision, and the stumbling 
blocks of false theories are not only between the writer 
and his theme but between writer and reader. 

I find but few aids in my lines of thought from the sci- 
entific vocabulary of the schools, and hence it becomes 
difficult to reveal the language of the occult forces in the 
philosophical language of those who teach that matter is 
dead and inert while all living forms of being are a divine 

creation. 

In my efforts to extend the boundaries of human thought 

so as to visualize the foundations of the earth as they now 
appear in astronomical science, laid upon the sun's envi- 
roning forces so firmly "that it should not be moved 
forever," I have endeavored to note the natural lines of 
the great archaic builder of suns and planetary worlds. 
These lines are plumb lines and right angled horizontal 
lines. The plumb lines of gravity with a right angled 
plane or level cutting them at any point that may be taken 
upon the earth's surface, give to the engineer lines that 
must be rigidly observed in all plants for the utilizing of 
mechanical power. The architect must build all his 
structures guided by the plumb line and level. The trees 



108 HEAT, LIGHT AND LIFE. 

all grow upon plumb lines, while at their base the earth is 
relatively a plane but really a sphere. Rocks, seas and 
oceans are laid in their native beds at right angles to the 
plumb lines of environment. 

These same radial and orbital lines of natural forces and 
power upon the earth, I have assumed, give the lines of 
the unseen forces that hold sun and planets in charge and 
give them their paths of motion. I do not intend to say 
that God did not build the world, but I do mean to say 
that when it was built it was built under the charge of 
gravital and orbital lines of material force currents. The 
work done proclaims the attraction and repulsion of these 
two companion forces of power as creators and governors 
of all worlds and all things having form and life. 

In pursuing my line of thought the careful reader cannot 
fail to detect the points of divergence that I have made 
from the teachings of the old masters, and it is desired 
that these points of departure from old lines of philosophic 
reasoning should be well considered and their bearings 
taken upon advanced discoveries in the invisible realms of 
material creative forces. 

Let it be noticed, therefore, 

i. That we regard matter, as it appears in its sensible 
measures, in a secondary state which it has assumed under 
the sovereignty of material forces that are eternal and that 
have presided over all material changes of matter from 
atomic elements to revolving worlds. 

2. That matter in its elementary state is as invisible 
and intangible as are the forces that determine all of its 
laws of motion and methods of work or aggregation. 



HEAT. LIGHT AND LIFE. l(l<) 

3. Elementary matter and elementary space are meas- 
ures of each other, and hence, all laws of motion are from 
matter in its atomic or invisible state and consequently are 
as universal as are gravity, matter and space. 

4. Straight and curvelinear lines of motion are fixed 
by the innate impulse of all atoms of matter that gives 
sensible measures of attraction and repulsion. Attraction 
gives straight line radial motion toward centers of aggrega- 
tion, while repulsion gives orbital lines of transference of 
both atomic elements and aggregations in body. 

5. The order of creation is from motion to rest, from 
space to body, from velocities like the light to those of the 
planets in their orbits, and the most insignificant form of 
germ life. 

6. The great spheres of matter that are gathered in 
sun systems of worlds are upheld and directed by the great 
sea of elementary forces from which they have been 
gathered. 

7. The energy of attraction stored up in each planetary 
body is balanced by an environing field of orbital repellent 
forces that are an exact measure of its radial currents of 
attracting energy. 

8. The conservation of energy arises from the conserved 
balance that the forces of attraction and repulsion mutually 
fix and preserve in all currents of moving forces. 

9. The gravital centers of all planetary bodies and their 
orbital paths of motion are determined by these correlate 
and constantly acting sovereignties of matter in space. 

10. Molecular forces find their methods of work accu- 
rately established under this balance of forces, insomuch 



1 ] HEAT . LIGHT AND LIFE . 

that perfect order and material harmony pervade the entire 
field of universal potencies and of elementary and organic 
forms of matter. 

By molecular forces we do not mean forces constituted 
of loose floating forms of minute particles of matter, but 
of those forces that take on the linear form of the sunbeam 
and work through and around organic matter as the currents 
of force environing the magnet. 

n. Light and heat are evolved from broken lines of 
electro-magnetic or gravital forces and are only revealed 
at such points in electro-magnetic currents of force as 
organic matter in soms form interposes resistance to their 
normal flow in closed circuits of responsive floods of 
impulse. 

a. The light and heat of creation are at such points 
and upon such planes of resistance as the dual floods of 
sun currents and earth currents are intercepted and broken 
by the resisting atmosphere of both earth and sun. 

b. The rapidly revolving bodies of earth and sun by 
their gravital attractions take up these broken floods in 
their warm and glowing lines of energy and carry them to 
their place in all growing forms, and in all aggregating 
bodies of matter over which they cast their silvery mantle. 

c. Attractions of earth and sun individualize and ap- 
portion the light and heat derived from these gravital cur- 
rents of energy according to the capacity of each body to 
absorb or take up their floods of elementary matter and 
energy. 

d. Spectrum analysis reveals to science, in these lines 
of gravity in their glowing form, those substances that are 



HE AT . LIGHT AND LIFE. Ill 

built into earth, sun, stars and their families of worlds. 
Sunlight, earth-light and starlight tell the story of the 
bodies of matter and forms of life that they have built into 
place from their perennial sources of creative potencies, 
and the story of a single revolving world is the story of all 
worlds. 

e. The light and heat of combustion or oxidation is 
simply a reversal of the energy of attraction by its co-or- 
dinating energy of repulsion by which maiter is broken 
up into currents and taken up into its native electro-mag- 
netic floods in space. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
ACROSS THE BORDER, 

WITH the coming of the Telephone and the Phono- 
graph, we may look for a reconstruction of our 
methods of philosophical reasoning and scientific exper- 
iment. 

The time has come when the errors of scientific deduc- 
tions will be corrected by the illuminating presence of 
facts and forces that appear in the field of intellectual 
vision and at the same time elude all tests of material 
measure. The dividing line between spiritual and mate- 
rial forces and identities is now pushed farther back than 
mere sensible measures, so that where we once thought an 
infinite spirit wrought, we now detect the perfect order 
and working presence of material potencies. 

The voice of the thunder is no longer to the world the 
voice of God, and the rainbow appears after the rain as a 
beautiful revelation of a material energy that commands 
all material changes in their order. 

We are just beginning to learn that great material poten- 
cies of matter are veiled from the perceptions of the senses, 
and at the same time may become fully revealed to the 
sublime tests of human reason. Hence we have thought 
of spontaneous generation, of the evolution of all material 
substances and orders of being from one grand material 



ACROSS THE BORDER. 113 

energy. We find that human consciousness and human 
thought are cradled and nurtured in the embrace of physi- 
cal forces, and that the law of primogeniture is commanded 
by a grand procession of material agencies that give tone 
and character to each line of progression. We are forced 
to the conviction, that if thinking orders of being were 
the offspring of spiritual conceptions, material energy 
caught up the conceptions and wrought out the perfected 
births, establishing with the species a line of marvelous 
forces that make it no sacrilege to class them with primary 
creative potencies. 

The materialism of our scientific teachers and some of 
our schools of science will lose its objectionable features 
when new discoveries give to matter its marvelous sources 
of life and capabilities of creative wisdom. We call mat- 
ter " dead, inert and insensate ", because we have simply 
acquainted ourselves with the works of matter, ignoring 
the material agencies that have wrought with the elements 
of all life and form. 

The delicate sensibilities, untiring patience, cunning 
artifice and sublime power of the working forces in matter, 
coupled with exact obedience to periods of time and 
mathematical order, can but inspire the thoughtful inves- 
tigator with feelings akin to worship. 

Elementary forces of matter and elementary forms, 
declare that "beginning" when creation's centers were 
fixed, and time began, and they compass the entire period, 
and determine all forms of creative work. We find the 
creative power and formative agencies of matter in the 
atomic elements. Both the builders and the materials for 



114 ACROSS THE BORDER. 

building, belong to matter, dissociate and inorganic, in 
space, and yet moving in systematic order and with the 
velocity of the light. 

When we assign creative work to such a beginning, pass- 
ing by nebulous matter and dead chaotic material as 
belonging to the age of dreams, then the most perplexing 
problems of creation will find an easy solution. Then a 
Tyndall will not endeavor to test the generative forces of 
matter with his animal and vegetable infusions, his pipettes 
and dark cabinets, from which are cut off the necessary 
conditions of life, and from such experiments, declaring in 
the face of the teeming millions that are generated, born, 
nurtured and sustained by material agencies, that ic matter 
has in it no spontaneous generative power." Neither will 
a Crooks attempt to weigh the light, which will then appear 
as itself a balance of two grand correlate forces that hold 
all of matter in their joint embrace. Then the perplexing 
problems of world building, first causes, and sources of sun 
energy, will find a solution as simple as the circulation of 
fluids or the revolutions of the seasons. 

In confirmation of these statements it is impossible to do 
more in these papers than to point to the opening door 
through which human thought must enter to reach the field 
of new discoveries. I have already intimated that we 
cannot pass present boundaries of scientific research in 
the use of the usual appliances of scientific experiment. 
The microscope and the telescope with their wonderful 
powers have led us hitherto, but the sweep of their power 
is limited. 

They can afford us no assistance in fixing the periods 



ACROSS THE BORDER. 115 

and discovering the measuring lines of the elements and 
energy that antedate material creations. 

That self-confident pilot of unknown seas of thought. 
Joseph Cook, of the Boston platform, sweeps the heavens 
with his telescope and searches out organized bodies of 
matter in their minutest forms with his microscope, and 
then stops at the boundaries thus reached by the aid of his 
glasses, and affirms, "that beyond his horizon of observa- 
tion there is a somewhat," and presuming he has reached 
the boundaries of material elements and forces, he teaches 
<; that the somewhat must be the someone." 

This is simply reaffirming the teachings of old mytholo- 
gies, that the gods dwelt just outside of the firmament 
that limited human vision. It is only thus that our modern 
scientists become profane to the unlettered, while they 
bring to us no new revelations of the somewhat or the 
someone. Here we must pause unless we can extend dis- 
covery into the now hidden fields of elementary atoms, 
and primal material energy. 

Modern research has attempted to reveal the methods of 
Nature in the formation of the great globes of matter, as 
well as in the organic structures of the mineral, vegetable 
and animal kingdoms of creation. The chemistry of sci- 
ence has furnished the educated mind with an acquaint- 
ance with the supposed elements of world-building. 

Names are given to such elements and their varied 
endowments of energy and capacity are so definitely 
fixed in the family of material elements that their presence 
and work may be traced in the various organisms into 
which thev enter. But chemical tests of the most delicate 



116 ACROSS THE BORDER. 

character by no means lead us to the boundaries of elemen- 
tary forms and of elementary material energy. It is de- 
serving of special notice, that as organisms are taken down 
and elements are reached, that power is developed. 

The laboratory of the chemist is stocked with elements of 
unmeasured and immeasurable energy, e. g. Water in its 
organic form is used as a mechanical power but its power is 
simply the power of a falling weight. It does work by its 
so-called inertia. Commence the work of dividing water, 
of dissociating its molecular forms by heat, producing 
steam, and then it does work by the repulsion of its atoms 
and thus becomes a source of power. Carry the process 
still further; gather its gases under the work of a galvanic 
battery and you have liberated three powerful working 
and building elements of matter, viz., oxygen and hydro- 
gen gas and electrical energy. Each of these elements 
possesses great working power and enters into organic 
structures as self-working agencies. These elements are 
only revealed in the laboratory of the chemist. They do 
their work in Nature as invisible forces, and yet without 
them organic matter could not be produced. 

The chemist tells us that " all atoms of matter are re- 
garded as originally charged with either positive or 
negative electricity." A molecule of water is made up of 
a positive atom of hydrogen, and a negative atom of oxy- 
gen. The quantity of electricity thus combined or neu- 
tralized in almost all kinds of matter is enormous. Fara- 
day has stated that "a drop of water contains more than is 
discharged in the most violent flash of lightning." 

From these statements let us fix definitely in mind, 



ACROSS THE UOltDEIl. 117 

i. That matter in its organic forms is held at rest un- 
der powerful atomic attractions. It is, in its solid state, 
the coiled spring, the suspended weight, of atomic power. 

2. That when attraction gives way to repulsion and 
the elements of organization are released from body they 
pass to their home in space, marvels of energy. 

3. That as matter becomes passive in organization and 
energetic in its elements, it follows that all of matter is 
organized and controlled by elementary forces, and that 
all of world building must be from atoms to combinations, 
from space to body. 

4. That it is illogical and unscientific to pause at the 
boundaries of experiment with the forms of matter, and 
affirm that the " somewhat " that is hidden in the elements 
of matter is non-material, as the "someone. " 

Let it be borne in mind that we are desirous of guiding 
scientific thought to the opening door of logical demon- 
strations that acquaint us with material creative potencies 
that are native to the heretofore accredited home of spirit- 
ual agencies. 

Not that we would discard the "someone," but that we 
would magnify the sublime power and infinite perfections 
of the "somewhat." 

As chaos and nebulous matter reduced to globes of light 
in a grand primary conflagration have so long held place 
in the popular mind as the first stages in world formations, 
we must here pause to note the distinction between the 
work of elementary forces as builders and as destroyers, 
as organizing and disorganizing agencies. There is no 
question but the same forces that preside over attractions 



118 ACROSS THE BORDER. 

and aggregations of matter in body, also preside over re- 
pulsions and disorganizations of body. 

Light and heat hold a commanding position among 
these agencies. Dr Draper, of New York, in his scientific 
memoirs says "A sickly looking plant springs from a seed 
in the dark. It is etiolated, as botanists say. If we ex- 
amine it carefully, making allowance for the water it con- 
tains, we shall find that no matter how tall it may be, its 
weight has not increased beyond the original weight of the 
seed from which it came. It has been developing at the 
expense of the seed, the substance of which has been suf- 
fering exhaustion for its supply of nourishment. We can- 
not continue this development in the dark indefinitely, 
for the seed supply is soon exhausted and the shoot dies," 
p. 178. Again, we find on page 187 the following ques- 
tion and answer. "Whence has the force which manifests 
itself as heat and light in a flame been derived? Force 
cannot be created; it cannot spring forth spontaneously 
out of nothing. The answer is, it came from the sun." 
Again he says on page 168, "The rays of the sun are 
the authors of all organization." Now we can but accept 
these emphatic declarations of this careful experimenter as 
final, as to the organic energy of the light and heat of the 
sun. But in our inquiries into the primary conditions of 
matter, we shall find it highly important that we note the 
radical distinction between light and heat as an organizing 
energy, and as a disorganizing energy ; for the former 
must take precedence, in order of work, of the latter; and 
more than this, light and heat must as an organizing 
agency have a place in organic power before the sun him- 



ACROSS TELE BORDER. 119 

self became the chief reservoir of power in the sun-system. 
According to the line of thought we have been pursuing, 
elements and energy have woven their lines of organic 
power as truly into the body of the sun as into earth and 
planets ; and they must have wrought systematically and 
in harmonic order from the beginning. Hence, before a 
universe ot matter could be wrapped in a sea of flame, it 
must have been organized by a sea of forces. This leads 
to the thought, that the light and heat of the sun consti- 
tute a flame that never consumes ; that they command a 
building energy and conserve that they have built. 

The statement of Dr. Draper, "That the rays of the sun 
are authors of all organization," holds us firmly to the 
position that the flame of the sunbeam that always builds 
and never consumes, must have held a commanding place 
in organic world structures before the flames could be kin- 
dled that are fed from wasting organic forms. 

And here we must express our regret that we are com- 
pelled to pursue a line of investigation that leads us into 
conflict with some of the popular scientific theories of the 
present time, among which is that of organic waste of the 
sun as source of light ; and as failure to discover the true 
source of light will baffle all our efforts to solve the diffi- 
cult problems of elements and elementary forces, we shall 
pursue our subject with only such reference to popular 
teachings as shall serve to make our positions clear toother 
minds. As it is conceded by all that light leads the forces 
in creative work, our attention must be fixed upon its 
source of power and its methods of work as our guides in 
the new fields of discovery into which modern thought is 
anxiously pressing. 



120 ACROSS THE BORDER. 

Prof. Tyndall says ",The life of the experimental phi- 
losopher is two-fold. He lives, in his vocation, a life of 
the senses, using his hands, eyes, and ears in his experi- 
ments, but such a question as that now before us carries 
him beyond the margin of the senses. He cannot consider, 
much less answer the question "What is light?" without 
transporting himself to a world which underlies the sensi- 
ble one, and out of which, in accordance with rigid law, 
all optical phenomena spring. To realize this subsensible 
world, if I may use the term, the mind must possess a 
certain pictorial power. It has to visualize the invisible. 
It must be able to form definite images of the things which 
that subsensible world contains, and to say that, if such a 
state of things exist in that world, then the phenomena 
which appear in ours, must, of necessity grow out of this 
state of things." 

According to the above line of progressive thought we 
must attempt the solution of the problem of sunlight in 
harmony with the fact of sun-creation. To do this we 
must first gain a conception of light as an energy of a 
world of matter in an unorganic state, and as light now 
illuminates all matter in body, we conclude that its energy 
touched and guided all elements of matter in their atomic 
state. But we find that light is an organizer of matter in 
body, and we therefore may think of space as pervaded 
with the organic lines of light, holding in their sensitive 
embrace all elements of world -building, 

With this conception of light in its elementary organic 
work, a logical sequence awakens the thought that from 
the beginning all of matter rests firmly, in the embrace of 



ACROSS THE BORDER. 121 

the invisible energy of space, and that the order of crea- 
tion must be from space to organic forms in body, and 
that the process must have been carried forward in perfect 
order. No chaos, no inertia, no insensate atom, no de- 
struction, no waste, no loss by friction, no fortuitous gath- 
ering of dead atoms to be molded into form by plastic 
hands. It also follows that all bodies of matter, from pri- 
mary molecular forms to the largest sun -spheres, are kept 
well in hand of the sovereign, invisible, material energy 
of space, and that all world velocities, and all orders of 
motion are under the guidance of such energy. The 
energy of atoms in space is the energy of atoms in aggre- 
gations of matter in body, and such energy works as freely 
in the hardened steel as in the softest sunbeam. 

We refer to light as the invisible agency in creative 
work, because the visible radiance is but a single glow- 
ing point in the great circles of its power, and we desire 
to reach beyond the radiance of sun-energy in our esti- 
mates of its sovereignty over matter. 



CHAPTER IX. 
FOURTH STATE OF MATTER. 

THE discussion thus far has led us to the contemplation 
of a state of matter that our teachers of science have 
heretofore failed to recognize. 

We learn from our philosophers "that there are three 
states of matter, the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous." 
Light, heat, attraction of gravitation, electricity and mag- 
netism have been left out of the classification. 

Now, if I am not mistaken in my authorities and modes 
of reasoning, matter in its lowest indivisible form is found 
in the electric and magnetic currents, and also in light 
and heat, so that matter in its change of states passes 
from the atomic or electro-magnetic, to the solid, with 
gaseous and liquid states intervening. So I beg the privi- 
lege of affirming that matter is found in four states, solid, 
liquid, gaseous and electro-magnetic. 

These different states depend upon that dual energy of 
the magnet, attraction and repulsion, working through 
atomic affinities under the modifying influence of light 
and heat. 

I am constrained to regard light and heat as modified 
states of electricity and magnetism, arising from their 
working union to matter, and gravitation the balancing 
sovereignty of all material energy. This position that I 
have taken years ago is strengthened by the late discov- 



FOURTH STATE OF MATTER. ]23 

enesof J. Norman Lockyer and Prof. Crooks, of England. 
These eminent experimenters in physical science have 
almost simultaneously reached advanced positions in the 
division of the "elements," as they have been styled. 

Mr. Lockyer has given the most careful study to spectra 
of the light-bearing globes, and he states, "That five years 
ago he pointed out that there are many facts and many 
trains of thought suggested by solar and stellar physics, 
which point to another hypothesis, namely, that the ele- 
ments, or at all events some of them, are compound bodies." 

Prof. Crooks from a different line of experiment reached 
a similar conclusion, and he announces a "fourth state of 
matter/' which he styles the "ultra-gaseous." 

It is with matter, then, in its fourth state that we are to 
seek an acquaintance as the somewhat that works outside 
of the boundaries of sensible measure. 

And here we may pause and take a hasty sketch of the 
outlying fields of thought as they now appear. They are 
bounded by the somewhere of space and they are the 
somewhat that pervades the somewhere with infinite lines 
of energy moving with the velocity of the light and in har- 
monic order. 

The conception we have gained of the fourth state of 
matter is that of an independent, self- necessitated and 
causative state. We cannot ask after source, boundaries 
or foundations of either the elements or the energy that 
sweep through space with the invisible flow of the electric 
and magnetic waves of counterflowing impulses. 

The elements of matter in their infinitesimal forms and 
tenuity of structure reach the outermost boundaries of 



V2A FOURTH STATE OF MATTER. 

thought. Like space and gravity there is nothing thinka- 
ble beyond, beneath, above or before them. 

From such a state may come all of the aggregations of 
matter and all of the forces that carry forward the trans- 
formations in its three other states. Attraction, like the 
power of falling weights, pulls the atomic forms of matter, 
like raindrops, towards the gravital centers of the great 
globes of space, and repulsion lifts again the mists of the 
great oceans and the wastes from the decaying forms of 
matter back again to a place among the elements from 
which they have been taken. It is to be noted that light, 
heat, electricity and magnetic energy are the transmuting 
and carrying forces of matter in all of its changes, and I 
may also add in all of its grand velocities and paths of rev- 
olution around gravital centers. 



CHAPTER X. 
UNITY OF THE FOBCES. 

IN Prof. Tyndall's work on "Heat" considered as a "Mode 
of Motion", page 225, he says "We have every reason 
to conclude that heat and electricity are both modes of 
motion; we know experimentally tliat from electricity we 
can get heat, and from heat, as in the case of our thermo- 
electric pile, we can get electricity. But although we 
have, or think we have, tolerably clear ideas of the char- 
acter of the motion of heat, our ideas are very unclear 
as to the precise nature of the change which this motion 
must undergo in order to appear as electricity — in fact, 
we know as yet nothing about it." 

Thus, then, we are to look to an acquaintance with 
light and heat as our only sure guides passing between the 
dark land of electric and magnetic velocities, to the land 
of light and sensible organic structures, and of still more 
wonderful velocities. 

The experiments of our scientific teachers, as we have 
noted, lead us to the borders of the dark land of universal 
energy and universal motion — to the cold, deep darkness 
of stellar space pervaded with working lines of gravital 
energy and the so-called radial lines of light and heat 
energy, that move out from sun and stars to build in crea- 
tion's great work-shops. 



126 UNITY OF THE FORCES. 

From this dark cold land, both the scientist and theolo- 
gian must admit, have been gathered the great suns and 
sun -systems that now stud the heavens with their brilliant 
lights — ever burning and never consuming the bodies from 
which they shine. Out of such depths these great lights 
have been kindled and kept constantly burning. Within 
these depths have been fixed the great equatorial planes of 
the solar systems in which rest firmly the gravital centers 
of suns and planets, fixing the great north and the great 
south by the same lines that fix the points of the mariner's 
compass. Here then we are brought face to face with the 
great law of polarization of currents, working in space, 
back of the law of gravity. Polarization is the result of 
two compound forces. The two forces are electricity and 
magnetism, each compounded of the oppositely moving 
forces of attraction and repulsion, positive and negative 
currents. The forces of electricity and magnetism reveal 
themselves in the magnet, and we believe in all growing 
organisms of matter as equally balancing forces, always 
moving at right angles to each, other and by so doing 
establishing axial lines and orbital lines of globes of energy 
of varied size, according to the strength of the nucleus 
centers that command them. 

A completed circuit of either electrical or magnetic lines 
is constituted of double lines of energy — positive and neg- 
ative — and according to the law of currents flowing freely 
in space, which is, — -'That currents moving in the same 
direction attract, while those moving in opposite direc- 
tions repel" — we must regard a completed circuit as made 
up of two oppositely revolving rings, each complete in its 



t'XITY OF THE FORCES. 127 

circuit of revolution, and yet bound to the other, each to 
each, by a magnetic lateral flow of impulses. This inter- 
flowing of electrical opposites in lines of energy in free 
space, is taught by experiment of currents with currents, 
and also is a necessity to the balance of positive and neg- 
ative energy, in the gravital attractions that pass over the 
same space between planetary bodies. The radius-vector, 
a line joining the center of the earth with the center of the 
sun, and that in the revolution of the earth around the sun, 
describes the plane of equatorial rest, or equatorial calms, 
where both the centers of the planets rest, and the polar 
currents lose their strength, is the central line of two cones 
of forces that do constant work between the sun and earth, 
holding the earth to her orbit and also carrying from earth 
to sun and sun to earth by the same lines of attraction all 
the light and heat energy that passes between them. Be- 
tween the two bodies must be an equal exchange of energy. 
The earth gathering by attraction from the sun through 
her cone of forces with a base of 852,000 miles in diam- 
eter, and its apex at the center of the earth, just as much 
strength as the sun gathers by his cone of forces 8,000 
miles in diameter terminating at the sun's center. As 
these radial lines of attraction grouped in oppositely point- 
ing altitudes of conical build, evidently constitute inde- 
pendent oppositely flowing attractions, there must have 
moved out from each body repellent energy, gathered 
into the same conical forms; otherwise sun and planet 
would be drawn together by mutual attractions. Such 
repellent energy is revealed in the electric orbital flood of 
currents that are grouped around the earth and that drive 



128 UNITY OF THE FORCES. 

it along its path around the sun always at right angles to 
the radius-vector and also to all floods of energy passing 
between earth and along radial lines of attraction. 

According to the vision we have gained of these forces, 
each solar system constitutes a vast globe of unified force- 
currents' with two hemispheres — a north and a south, 
divided by an equatorial plane of permanent rest and per- 
petual calms. 

In this vast globe of forces, the center of the sun is the 
revolving center with his solid nucleus of 850.000 miles in 
diameter, with a radiant envelope of light, and from these 
orbital and radial floods of energy extending to Neptune, 
the outermost planet in his family of worlds, enveloped in 
their hemispheres of forces the planets take their places, 
each with their hemispheres of matter and currents, with 
equatorial planes of rest coinciding with the equato- 
rial plane of rest of the sun's forces. Add to this 
vision the thought that these hemispheres reveal their 
working strength in great polar attractions and repulsions, 
that are balanced so perfectly as to giye to the vast equa- 
torial plane of the sun's equator the stability of perpetual 
rest, and then there may be gained some conception of the 
exhaustless source of that mechanical power that upholds, 
and keeps in perpetual motion in this great plane, that 
system of satellites and planets that revolve so harmoni- 
ously and in such perfect order of time around the sun. 

The thoughts we have already fixed in mind respect- 
ing the power of the linear forces of this sun-sphere should 
be strengthened by a glance at their wonderful velocities. 
To do this refer to the swing of the pendulum of a clock 



UNITY OF THE FORCES. 129 

beating seconds, and note that at each vibration the cur- 
rents between the earth and sun move 182,000 miles and 
Mercury goes forward in his orbit 30.40 miles; Venus 
22.24 miles; Earth 18.91 miles; Mars 15.32 miles, and 
Neptune at the distance of 2.272,325,000 miles from the 
sun, moves 3^ miles. 

By noticing the decreased velocity of the planets in 
their orbits as they recede from the sun, it will be clear to 
any mind that neither primary divine impulse nor inertia 
will account for their uniform retardation. 

From the views we have now gained of the working 
power of the polar and equatorial currents of the solar 
system we deduce these statements : 

1. That the polar forces of the sun and planets estab- 
lish the equatorial plane of rest in which the centers of 
gravity of the various bodies are evenly held. These 
forces in the magnet are called magnetic currents. 

2. That the currents that pass around the earth, par- 
allel to the equator, are repellent forces that drive the 
earth and planets across the radial lines of attraction that 
draw towards gravital centers of sun and planets, and by 
so doing determining the curvilinear paths of the planets. 
These currents in the electro-magnet are called electrical 
currents. 

As we have before stated each class of currents is con- 
stituted of two oppositely moving polarizing currents of 
equal strength, called positive and negative. 

Our position is that all matter is, in its fourth state held 
in these four divisions of the grand polarizing material 
energy of the entire universe consisting of its 64 elements. 



]30 UNITY OF THE FORCES. 

In these polarizing forces matter is revealed in lines of 
infinitesimal fineness, and in two equally balanced divis- 
ions of virgin elements. The positive elements all flowing 
in positive currents and the negative all flowing in the 
negative currents. These floods always moving in oppo- 
site directions and in space are mutually repellent, never 
meeting though interflowing, of equal strength and equal 
velocities. We suggest the thought that the male and 
female distinction in generative organic forces here finds 
its primary cause. The classes of atoms that repel in 
space seek each other and join in firm embrace in all or- 
ganic unions. Positive currents represent the male prin- 
ciple of mattei and negative currents the female principle. 

Now we are to keep in mind that we are visualizing a 
system of harmoniously working forces, that are real work- 
ing agencies in world formation; that they hold all forms 
of matter in their embrace and guidance, and yet make no 
report to the senses. They are the "co-ordinating forces 
that work back of the bioplasm arranging the growth of 
the whole body." 

As Mr. Cook has well said, "If their influence were here 
in the air you could not touch it; you could pass your 
hand through it; you could not feel it, and yet you know 
it is there. But these nerves themselves were woven by 
the bioplasts. Take out the bioplasts. Let them retain 
their co-ordination. There is something behind them — 
the co-ordinating power. You know such a power is 
there. Take that co ordinating power out; hold it up 
here ; you cannot see it, you cannot touch it, but it is 
there." 



UNITY OF THE FORCES. 131 

Again he says, "It is an accepted conclusion with Julius 
Muller that this finest thing of all, or the co-ordinating 
force which we know exists in the physical organism, is the 
true body." This unseen co-ordinating power as we have 
seen must weave its net-work of forces through every 
organic form. It presides over every generative embrace 
of either atoms or organic bodies of atoms. It traces out 
generative lines of order, preserves distinctions between 
all classes, individualizes form and being, gives continuity 
to life, and is the working power in all things that have 
life. Even the rocks in their crystalline structures and 
the metals in their solid forms are bound together by, and 
command the constant watchfulness of these unseen forces. 
Let not the reader be in haste to pass from these visions of 
creative power and of omnipotent strength that we have 
been contemplating as belonging to the material elements 
of creation. It is to these thoughts that we must recur again 
and again, to guide us in our discoveries of the wonder- 
working powers of matter in its invisible organisms. 

[note.] The reader will here notice that the writer's 
conception of the working unity of the forces was not clear 
at the writing upon the transference of energy, as light and 
gravity between sun and planets. There can be no radial 
lines of attraction separate from orbital lines of repulsion, 
and hence the chapters on gravity and planetary motion 
were subsequently written, to which the reader is referred 
for a more perfect delineation of the unity of the forces 
than is. found in this chapter. 



CHAPTER XI. 
NATURE'S METHODS IK CREATION. 

I NOW invite the attention of the reader who has kept 
company with me thus far to attempt to follow in vis- 
ion the natural order that these invisible forces preserve in 
building up organic structures. 

And the first step in the order is resistance awakened 
between energy and atoms. 

The separating line between matter in its fourth, or 
electro-magnetic state and matter in its solid state, is the 
line of work fixed by resisting atomic attractions. These 
attractions spring from the lagging behind of overburdened 
electrical currents, in which magnetic, or cross currents, 
gain the mastery and establish gravital centers. When 
once established, resistance awakens magnetic strength, 
and magnetic strength increases atomic accretions and the 
work, of building is established as a perpetual work. Mat- 
ter in its organic form is bound together by the lateral 
attraction of atoms, while in free space they are joined by 
polar attractions; hence, the strength of a body of matter 
as it increases in magnitude is increased in the length and 
strength of its lateral and polar currents of attraction that 
draw matter on radial lines towards its gravital center. 
At the same point the electrical currents of space take up 
their work around the body of equal strength to the mag- 



nature's methods in creation. 138 

netic currents, and thus, matter in its various states, with 
its circle of transformations and changes, goes constantly 
forward. 

We have already glanced at the gravital plane of rest 
that is established by the equatorial planes of each family 
of planets under the commanding influence of the great 
central sun. 

In this great plane of rest the gravital center of each 
body of the solar system is held by equally balanced orbi- 
tal forces, while at right angles to this plane of rest — com- 
mon to the whole system of orbital forces and revolutionary 
motion — the poles of each revolving globe become fixed 
by a system of polar forces, so that each forming globe 
takes its place in space under the firm guidance of two 
grand forces that fix a grand plane of revolution and at 
right angles to such plane polar forces that establish axial 
centers of revolution. 

This somewhat involved statement is here made that we 
may gain a comprehensive view of the systematic working- 
energy, with which all of matter is brought into form and 
place in the progressive^steps of world-building. 

In this conception of the co-working of matter and 
energy in world creation it appears that there is an exact 
balance preserved between each body of matter and the 
working forces that have fashioned it. The sun's energy 
is felt by Neptune, the most distant planet in the solar 
system, at a distance of 2,770,247,000 miles. This energy 
moves in great circles around the sun, equal in strength to 
the magnitude of the attractions of matter built into the 
sun's body, and Neptune, whose light is vailed from our 



134 NATURES METHODS IN CREATION. 

unaided vision, responds feebly to the sun's influence, and 
takes up its orbital march around the sun, traveling in its 
orbit with only one-sixth of the velocity the earth attains 
in her orbit. 

Within the sun's great globe of unified and balanced cur- 
rents, all the planets with their satellites, each surrounded 
by a like globe of forces clinging to their gravital centers, 
perform their wonderful revolutions and acquire their indi- 
vidual velocities. In scripture phrase it may be truly said, 
" In Him " they "live, move and have their being. " 

From the ideas we have here gained of the elements and 
forces that enter into the great work of world-creation, 
we are enabled to fix certain elementary principles of me- 
chanical power by which the machinery of the solar-system 
is unerringly governed. And 

i. The power rests primarily in two grand divisions of 
world energy, viz., attraction and repulsion. 

2. These two equal divisions of power are bound 
together by a neutral plan ol rest as truly in the atom as in 
the great globes of matter; hence we have the polarized 
atom of the sunbeam as truly as the polarized bodies of 
sun, earth and planets. 

3. The two forces of the solar system, attraction and 
repulsion, obey the great laws of polarization, and perform 
their work across and around the fixed planes and axial 
lines of motion; hence the equatorial plane of the sun's 
revolution becomes the equatorial plane of revolution of 
all the planets and polar forces fix axial centers of revolu- 
tion at right angles to such plane of rest. 

4. Centers of aggregation and of revolution are fixed 



nature's methods in CREATION. loo 

at the point of intersection of the poles of each planet 

with the great equatorial plane of the solar system. 

[note.] In the preparation of this chapter the writer 
had in mind the idea of orbital impulse as resulting from 
impact or projection of a right angled force as is given in 
the parallelogram of forces; but in the electro-magnetic 
balance, the right angled force resisting gravity is a right 
angled force of attraction. The earth revolves towards the 
line of flow of the electric currents around the earth; as 
matter is attracted toward the earth's center in radial 
lines, so the earth revolves toward the flow of attracting 
currents on the surface of the earth, and the planets in 
their orbits move towards the flow of the great orbital 
currents in environing space. Attractions toward the 
central body and attractions around a central body give a 
closed orbit of motion. Both forces are under the cen- 
tral energy of the body, through which and around which 
they attract. Hence it is, that all orbital lines are circles, 
and all orbits closed orbits, as these forces are jointly bal- 
ancing forces of attraction, respecting at all times the 
same central bindings of their mutual strength. The 
repulsion of these joint forces is a pressure on all gravital 
lines from a center outward, as in the growth of an apple 
or in expansion of matter under pressure, as in the ignition 
of dynamite, also as appears in waves moving out from a 
disturbed center. In the attraction and repulsion of mat- 
ter by the forces they act as a unit of force. 

Thus we find the sun, with its family of planets, consti.- 
tuting a perfect system of machinery, self evolved, self- 
adjusted and self-moved, perpetually working out and 
revealing the manifold wonders of creation. 

The machinery of the heavens has its beginning in the 
eternity past of atoms and energy, and has the promise of 
an eternity to come in its living wheels and immortal 
energy that co-exist and co-work without a lawless atom to 
disturb their harmony. 



CHAPTER XII. 

ATTRACTION AND REPULSION EQUAL 
FACTORS IN GRAVITATION. 

WE now come to the study of the law of intercom- 
munion between sun and planets. 

We have been taught that the law of universal gravita- 
tion governs the motion of the planets in their orbits, and 
gravity, according to our text books, simply means attrac- 
tion. , The law is thus stated: "The force with which two 
material particles respectively attract each other is directly 
proportioned to their masses, and inversely proportioned 
to the square of the distances between their centers." 

Here it will be seen that we have given us the law of 
descending weights, but no law of lifting weights. The 
law according to which the planets and all matter falls 
toward the sun, but no law of orbital energy by which 
planets are kept out of the sun, and these two forces must 
be balanced forces to impart the curvilinear motion that 
the planets take in their orbits around the sun. 

In this diagram there is a representation of two equal 
forces working at right angles to each other thereby giving 
a curvilinear motion to the body acted upon similar to 
that of a planet in its orbit. 

In this figure the body, acted upon by the single force of 
attraction would in a given time fall from and along the 



NATURE'S 3IETH0DS IN CREATION. 



137 



the attraction 



x s~ — a 



radial line m c to a, but it has described a curvilinear path, 
and reached n in the circle m n, hence a force equal to 
:, must have been exerted upon the body 
in the line m 6, thus at every 
point in the circle m n, the two 
forces remain constant. Fromi 
whence comes this repellent force 
balancing sun attraction? We 
have said that it comes from the 
repellent energy of atoms in 
space moving with the velocity 
of the light around all bodies of 
matter and at right angles to the radial lines of such 
bodies. The rule we here state thus, atoms in body 
attract along radial lines towards gravital centers, 
atoms in space repel or resist attraction and take up 
their li7ie of motion at right angles to the radial lines 
of attracting masses. 

Now as we have seen that repellent orbital energy sur- 
rounding a magnetic body is a balance to the attracting, 
axial or magnetic energy within it; the law of the atom 
governs the law of the forces that have it in charge; the 
same is the law of the great globes of matter. 

Bat our teachers in philosophy have treated of matter 
as if it were dead, inert and plastic, and of the work of 
creation as if consisted in moulding such matter into bod- 
ily forms, and imparting life to such forms by a spiritual 
inbreathing; hence they teach that the orbital force of 
matter consists of an original, divine impulse given to 
matter at its creation which the inertia of matter still 



retains, 



in 



138 NATURE'S METHODS IK CREATION. 

That neither original, divine impulse nor inertia has 
anything to do with the orbital force of planetary bodies 
is evident from the fact that the force of attraction of 
matter for matter reveals in it a universal energy, and 
denies the existence of such a law in matter as inertia, 
while it is irrational to suppose that original impulse should 
be imparted to matter as a balancing energy against a 
Constantly pulling power of attraction. 

Again the repellent energy of atoms is revealed in all 
chemical and mechanical unions as equal to attractions, 
so that matter is changed from solid to liquid, from liquid 
to gaseous, and from gaseous to electro-magnetic, solely 
by the use of material agencies. The weight that falls to 
the earth by attraction may be lifted by repulsion. 

Matter by attraction comes to rest in body, by repulsion 
it springs, like an arrow from a bent bow, to its home in 
space. Again the process of growth in all living organ- 
isms is carried forward by the working energy of the two 
equal forces of attraction and repulsion. I hesitate not to 
affirm that all growing bodies are growing magnets, and 
that they are fed solely from atomic elements, that, gath- 
ered from sun-currents and earth-currents, move to their 
place in body under the guidance of magnetic attractions 
and repulsions. This is the life energy that works back of 
the pioplasms as we have already noticed. 

And now we are brought face to face with the hitherto 
perplexing problem of waste and supply of sun energy. It 
is the great problem of astronomical science and hitherto 
has found no solution consistent with the perpetuity of the 
solar system. I state the problem as I find it in l 'Elements 



NATURE'S METHODS IN CREATION. 139 

of Astronomy," by J. Norman Lockyer, a work now in 
use in schools, published in 1873. After referring to the 
sun as the source of light he says, "Then as to the sun's 
heat. The heat thrown out from every square yard of the 
sun's surface is greater than that which would be produced 
by burning six tons of coal^on it each hour. Now, we 
may take its surface roughly at 2,284,000,000,000 square 
miles and there are 3,097,000 square yards in each square 
mile. How many tons of coal must be burnt, therefore, 
in an hour to represent the sun's heat? 

"But the sun sends out, or radiates, its light and heat in 
all directions, it is clear, therefore, that as our earth is so 
small compared with the sun and is so far away from it the 
light and heat the earth can intercept is but a very small 
portion of the whole amount, in fact, we only grasp the 
hmoVoijoo P art °f it- All tne planets together receive but 
two hundred and twenty-seven millionths of the solar light 
and heat. 

"The whole heat of the sun collected on a mass of ice 
as large as the earth would be sufficient to melt it in two 
minutes, to boil the water thus produced in two minutes 
more, and to turn it all into steam in a quarter of an hour 
from the time it was first applied. 

"Will the sun keep up forever a supply of the force that 
has been described? It cannot, if it be not replenished, 
any more than a fire can be kept up unless we put on fuel; 
any more than a man can work without food. At present 
philosophers know not by what means it is replenished. 
As, probably, there was a time when the sun existed as 
matter diffused through space, the condensation of which 



140 NATURE'S 3IETHODS IN CREATION. 

matter has stored up its heat, so probably, there will come 
a time when the sun, with all its planets welded into its 
mass, will roll a cold black ball, through infinite space;" 
and then follows this remarkable statement : 

"We have no evidence, however, of any loss of heat, 
even from century to century, and if there is a loss there 
will doubtless be sufficient heat left to supply the planets 
with all they need for thousands of years to come." 

Now, by turning to the estimate of the sun's mass com- 
pared with all the planets and we find that the sum in 
miles of the diameters of all the planets multiplied by three 
is 100,000 miles less than the diameter of the sun. This, 
surely, does net comport with the theory that the sun's 
wasting energies have for ages been supplying building 
material for the bodies of the planets. 

Again Mercury receives seven times more light and heat 
from the sun than the earth, and yet its diameter is nearly 
two-thirds less than that of the earth, while Jupiter receives 
many times less light and heat than the earth and has a 
diameter^more than ten times greater, and a volume 1,400 
times greater. These comparisons teach us that the great 
law of waste and supply of sun energy in dispensing light 
and heat to the planets is not such as is presented in the 
problem'that our astronomers have found so difficult of 
solution. 

To correct the statement in accordance with the hypoth- 
esis and arguments of this paper, I state, 

1. That the light and heat of both sun and planets are 
building forces on the surfaces of their several bodies., 



NATURE s METHODS IN CREATION. 141 

They illuminate and warm the bodies to which they cling- 
but never consume them. 

2. Each planet in the solar system holds its place in its 
orbit under the great law of gravital attractions and ac- 
cording to this law the sun attracts matter to its own body 
on radial lines and never radiates either light or heat as a 
supply to planetary bodies. According to the same law 
every revolving body in the solar system attracts matter to 
itself according to its mass or volume, and its light and 
heat will be in proportion to its strength of magnetic at- 
tractions. Neither sun nor moon are exceptions to this 
law. 

Waiving the discussion of the question of light and heat 
other than that of incandescence, which will in its place 
aid materially in our conclusions, let us pass to notice the 
testimony of the light as to its lines of propagation from 
body to body. And 

i. The light moves in straight lines, whether radiated, 
attracted or reflected. 

2. In passing from a solid lump of coal to its electro- 
magnetic state by means of combustion or repulsion, it 
radiates from the center of propagation to the vanishing 
lines of its sphere of illumination. 

3. In building itself into the solid mass of coal it obeyed 
the law of attraction and moved in straight lines towards 
the gravital center of the growing organism that attracted 
it. 

From these statements we notice that the lines of light 
coincide with the lines of gravital attractions and conse- 
quently in creation move on radial lines towards gravital 



142 nature's methods in creation. 

centers, and in combustion take up the same lines of mo- 
tion in reversed order. 

Also, that in reflection it obeys the law of an elastic 
falling body, preserving still its perfect linear order of 
motion. 

Now let us select from the great circles and the great 
globes of the solar system, the straight lines of any mathe- 
matical figure we may construct, whether circles, spheres, 
cones or sections of cones and they will be radial lines and 
none other. We have here then, the elucidation of the 
principle of evolution of light and heat from the gravital 
attraction of falling bodies, when encountering a resisting 
medium. We have stated that the radial lines of light 
and heat as they come to us from space, or as we say, from 
the sun, follow gravital lines of attraction. If this be so, 
they obey the law of falling bodies, and yet upon the sur- 
face of the earth, evolve light and heat, which upon the 
earth are repellent forces. 

But note again that we have regarded these radial lines 
as magnetic lines, laden with the virgin elements of matter, 
and that illumination of these elements is awakened by the 
resistance of the atmosphere on the surface of body 
upon which they fall. Again, the breaking up and dis- 
turbance of these radial lines of attraction, awaken also 
electrical lines of repulsion, and in the vibrating swing of 
the commingling currents of electrical and magnetic lines 
of energy, light and heat are evolved. Earth and sun 
giving the electro-magnetic couple that completes the cir- 
cuit of electric conduction. 

Then we have reached the grand ideal of our scientist, 



NATURE'S METHODS IX CREATION. 143 

by a wholly different line of thought , involving different 
scientific conclusions, viz., "That the light and heat of the 
sun are supplied from gravital energy pouring virgin atoms 
of matter into the sun's atmosphere/' thus evolving his 
brilliant light and heat within his own photosphere. 

But in all of this there is no waste of energy, no force of 
incandescence to light other globes, no radiation of heat 
into cold, dark, unrequiting space, no evidence of decay- 
ing suns or burned-out worlds. Every planet by this law 
of evolution shines with its own light, measured by its 
gravital energy, and warms itself from the source that sup- 
plies its ever growing strength, and unfolding orders of 
creative work. 

The power that appears upon the earth as sunlight is 
thus awakened within the earth's atmosphere and like the 
power of gravity gives back to the sun just as much as it 
receives. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT. 

IN review of the theory we have discussed in this paper, 
"making the lines of light and heat identical with 
gravital lines of attraction," it will be noticed that the 
enlightening energy of the earth upon the sun is conveyed 
in lines gathered in the form of a cone, consequently upon 
the sun's equator circles of light are presumed to fall cor- 
responding to the magnetic or gravital energy of the vari- 
ous planets. These circles of illumination will follow upon 
the equator of the sun, the motion of the planets as the 
moon's shadow falls upon the earth at an eclipse of the 
sun. Confirming this theory I quote a short article upon 
the "variability of the sun's surface," from the "Supple- 
ment Scientific American, No. 161." "At one of the 
sessions of the French Association, Jenssen described the 
apparatus which enabled him to take photographs with an 
exposure of tottooo of a second, and explained the new 
information which such photographs have furnished respect- 
ing the upper surface of the photosphere. The polar 
regions are covered with a general granulation of forms, 
dimensions and distributions very different from the ideas 
which have been derived from optical examination. 
Resemblances to willow leaves, rice grains, etc., may be 
occasionally traced in single points, but the prevailing and 



SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT. 14. 



fundamental form is spherical, and the 'grains' appear to be 
clouds of dust or mist floating in a gaseous medium. The 
luminous intensity of the sun resides chiefly in a few points, 
so that if the whole surface was as bright as the most bril- 
liant portions, its luminosity would be increased from ten 
to twenty fold." 

This photographic appearance of the sun is wholly incon- 
sistent with -the teaching that the sun is a burning mass 
and a radiator of light and heat for the use of the plane- 
tary bodies of the solar system, and to say the least, is not 
inconsistent with the theory of electro-magnetic illumina- 
tion of the heavenly bodies, as has been presented in this 
paper. 

The deferred subject of light and heat, of vital interest 
in this discussion, now demands attention and must be 
compressed into as narrow limits as possible; outlines of 
our argument only, can be given. And 

1. The reader must be reminded that our subject brings 
us again to the border land of the senses, where Ave must 
seek an acquaintance with the unseen and intangible by 
actualizing in our mind images of thought. Our books of 
science teach us that the "sun is the source of light and 
heat and of all power." We answer, no, and say that 
light and heat energy must have existed before the first 
atoms of sun-formation were bound together. The sun 
surely is large enough to be the sensible source of light • 
and heat, but what of the invisible energy that has stored 
itself up in the sun's vast organism ? By experiment we 
find light is motion. It moves with inconceivable veloc- 
ity. It traverses space and comes to the eye in lines of 



146 SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT. 

infinite fineness, and envelopes all things that have life in 
its silvered mantle. It brings with it warmth and build- 
ing energy, also the atoms of matter of which sun and 
planets are built. We are taught by analysis of the sun's 
light, that in its fine drawn lines are sodium, iron, 
magnesium, barium, copper, zinc, calcium, chromium, 
nickel, and if these, why not all elements of matter? Again, 
while it comes to us laden with matter, it has no percep- 
tible weight, and therefore must be a balanced energy such 
as gravity is, that carries great globes of matter in equally 
poised balances, woven of two great hemispheres of forces. 
Again, it shines from out of the cold, deep darkness of 
stellar space, and grows strong by resistance and only 
puts on its shining garments of visible form when it has 
work to do, either in lifting up the tender shoot just 
emerging from its seed in the earth, or in riving and crush- 
ing the sturdy tree of the plain. 

It carries with it all power over life and form in matter 
and yet nurtures into life the tiniest seed that falls upon 
the earth, and more, it wraps up all forms of coming life 
in the buds, blossoms and seeds of the present. 

We learn also that the invisible rays that accompany the 
light rays, have more heating and chemical energy than 
the visible, so we conclude that the true source of light 
and heat is invisible, intangible, and as exhaustless as 
" space is unlimited. It is under the working power of that 
energy that appears as light and heat, that matter is carried 
through all of its changes of state, and takes on all of its 
forms of power. 

We have already seen, that according to the everywhere 



SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT. 147 

working lines of polarization, that both matter and energy 
are equally divided into two hemispheres of form, and 
bound together at a neutral equator of rest. We have also 
found the positive and negative currents of space moving 
side by side in opposite directions, mutually repellent, vir- 
gin elements. 

Now the central thought that must guide us in dealing 
with light and heat, is, that they are primarily revealed at 
the change of matter from its electro-magnetic state in 
space to its magneto-electric state in body. 

At the joining where currents are broken up into atoms, 
and where positive and negative atoms take up a generative 
union, or at least freely commingle on the surface of body, 
there light and heat are developed, conversely when fric- 
tion is applied to matter in mass, or concussion disturbs 
violently its atomic structure, thereby disturbing the equi- 
librium of the dual correlate forces of attraction and repul- 
sion that are a constant presence in all organized bodies 
of matter, repulsive energy is awakened and heat is evolved. 
The work of repulsion is manifest in the expansion of the 
disturbed body, and if the disturbed mass is subjected to a 
sufficiently persistent friction or concussion, light succeeds 
heat, repulsion overcomes attraction, and ■ combustion 
marks the vanishing line across which the divided atoms 
pass to their linear structure in space. 

Thus when matter comes to rest under the prevailing 
energy of attraction, it passes from the cold, dark condi- 
tion of currents through a resisting medium, to the electro- 
magnetic balance of light, and, on the contrary, when 
disorganization takes place, it passes again through a like 



148 SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT. 

electro-magnetic balance of atoms to a new organization 
in body or to its home in space. 

The power under which these changes in matter are car- 
ried forward is its power of attraction and repulsion of 
matter in its linear condition. 

The summit-level upon which these opposing forces 
relinquish their mutual burdens in creative work is that 
of the light. Through its shining portals all of matter 
passes, whether seeking rest in body or ceaseless activity 
in space. In the electric light the power that is revealed 
in the flame is at the dark ends of the carbon pencils, and 
has its source in the positive and negative impulses of 
either magnet or battery. We must then note clearly the 
distinction that experiment makes between light and heat 
and the dual power that feeds it from the invisible polar- 
ized floods of space, as we distinguish between the candle 
and the flame that derives its brilliancy from its wasting 

form. 

When this distinction is clearly in mind, we shall then 
learn how to think of that dual organism of currents that 
is behind all organisms of matter, an invisible and still a 
guiding and sustaining power. Let the electro-magnet be 
our teacher and reveal to us the great mystery of its strength 
and we shall learn that an unseen material energy waits 
upon every living thing and gives strength to every organic 
form possessing power. 

It is after this "something" that is back of sensible 
organic forms of matter that we are now searching. We 
take the electro-magnet in our hands, examine it, weigh it, 
and note its construction and test its power. It is a piece 



SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT. 149 

of round, soft iron, bent in the form of the letter u. The 
two ends of the iron we call poles, with reference to future 
use; the polar ends are wound with a copper wire wound 
with silk or thread so as to keep it separate by insulation 
from any connection with the iron. The opposite ends of 
the wire project beyond the poles of the magnet. 

Thus far we are dealing with sensible measures. The 
weight of the iron, the length of the wire, etc., we fully 
understand, and yet there is an energy binding together 
the atoms of the metals from which the magnet has been 
constructed that eludes all. sensible tests. These metals 
came into their present condition from the heated furnace 
a liquid, glowing with a repellent energy equal to the cohe- 
sive strength now binding together their atomic structure. 
Now what we are inquiring after is the balancing center of 
that conservation of energy in matter that does interior 
work and thus indicates its presence in all material attrac- 
tions and repulsions that give form to body and work all 
transformations of matter. In prosecuting our inquiry we 
have set acids at work in our galvanic battery upon zinc 
and copper, taking down their organic structure atom by 
atom, and liberating the energy binding atoms in their 
metallic form. This energy we lead off by conducting 
wires that we join to the wires projecting from the poles of 
our prepared magnet, and when the current is completed 
electric currents flow through the wire around the soft iron 
bar, and at once an induced flow of magnetic currents pass 
through the magnet, pouring into each pole with equal 
velocity and strength of energy to the electric currents 
passing around the iron magnet in the conducting wire. 



150 SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT. 

Apply to this magnet a soft iron keeper, joining the poles 
and completing the magnetic currents and our magnet 
lifts pounds. This power of the electro-magnet is the 
power of electro-magnetic currents, and is the same power 
of currents that do interior work in the metals binding 
them together by attraction, or taking them back to ele- 
mentary atoms by repulsion. 

In an extract from a memoir of Sir Humphrey Davy, on 
page no of Tyndall's work on "Heat as a Mode of Mo- 
tion, " we find this important statement; "The effects of 
the attraction of cohesion, the great approximating cause, 
on the corpuscles of bodies is exactly similar to that of the 
attraction of gravitation on the great masses of matter 
compassing the universe, and the repulsive force is anala- 
gous to the planetary projectile forces. He also says, "The 
particles of bodies may be considered as acted upon by 
two opposing forces; the approximating power, which 
may (for greater ease of expression) be called attraction, 
and the repulsive motion. The first of these is the com- 
pound effect of the attraction of cohesion by which the 
particles tend to come in contact with each other. The 
second is the effect of amotory or vibratory impulse given 
to them tending to remove them farther from each other, 
and which can be generated, or rather increased, by fric- 
tion or percussion." 

Thus it appears that in the mind of Sir Humphrey Davy 
there was a blending of the two compound forces of cohe- 
sive attraction, and projectile or heat repulsion, and the 
gravital planetary force of attraction and the projectile 
force of repulsion. 



SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT. 151 

I desire to emphasize the thought that these forces are 
thus blended in Nature, and at the same time to note the 
conditions upon which they appear as light and heat, in 
contrast with the conditions in which they appear as sim- 
ple planetary motion. And first we observe in the electro- 
magnet that the two compound forces are divided by a 
never changing law into radial and orbital currents of 
energy. By increasing the strength of either the orbital 
or the axial currents the correlate currents will be equally 
increased, so that magnets have been constructed able to 
sustain many times their own weight, and yet while the 
currents are left to an unresisted freedom they balance 
each other and neither light or heat are evolved. In plan- 
etary motion this free balance is preserved and constant 
velocities and completeness of systematic revolutionary 
motion is preserved. 

The repelling or projectile electrical currents and the 
attracting magnetic currents, establish a common gravital 
center and a common equator of rest, which, extended 
into space from such center at right angles- to the axial 
currents, becomes the balancing plane of revolution. 

But currents in free, unobstructed motion are still under 
perfect obedience to the law of current-polarization, which 
is, "that currents flowing in the same direction attract, 
while those moving in opposite directions repel, " conse- 
quently positive and negative pass each other in their 
circuit of motion, each flowing at the rate of 180,000 miles 
in each second of time, making a compound motion of 
360,000 miles per second. These counter flowing currents 
hold in their embrace all of matter in free space and con- 



152 SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT. 

stitute vast globes of systematized material energy. They 
also hold a gravital relation to matter in organic forms, 
bearing the great globes of space with an evenly balanced 
motion along their circular paths of perpetual journeyings. 
This state of matter in the field of its sublimest displays of 
creative wisdom and omnipotent power, is superior to sen- 
sible measure; its atomic forms and its floods of power are 
cold, dark, attenuate, and elude both touch and vision. 

Now let the connection be broken between battery and 
magnet ; its wonderful power is gone and it becomes as at 
first, simply iron and insulated wire. In the place of the 
magnet let a thin platinum wire be inserted, restore battery 
connections and we soon discover that the currents of the 
battery are working under new conditions. The platinum 
wire is a strong resistant in the pathway of the currents; 
their compound motion of 360,000 miles per second is 
arrested, and their oppositely moving currents, like oppo- 
sitely moving trains of cars simultaneously meeting a grand 
obstruction, are broken up and piled together, and from 
the gravital concussion of atoms, thus dashing against the 
obstructing platinum wire, light and heat are evolved. The 
velocity of the dark currents of the connecting wires is now 
revealed in light and heat. In this new condition of energy 
new relations of matter succeed. Through the flame the 
atoms of the oppositely flowing currents are dashed into a 
new embrace; positive and negative seek each other in firm 
chemical unions, and by the attractions of aggregat 
matter are carried to their place in material forms. Through 
this order of resistance, concussion and generated repulsions 
and attractions of light and heat, the higher work of or- 



SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT. 153 

ganic creation is carried forward. The gaseous, the liquid 
and the solid states of matter all wait upon the electro- 
magnetic elements of light and heat for their beginning 
and permanency of structure. 

The dream of our ablest philosophers, "that light and 
heat in the sun are generated by resistance to gravity, " 
here finds an interpreter that teaches that resisted grav- 
ity is light and heat wherever it is revealed, either in 
sun, stars or planets. 

But light and heat thus evolved are building forces, lift- 
ing matter across the dividing line between matter in 
space and matter in body, and then at once surrendering 
their burdens to cohesive affinities. 

Gravital energy does its work as light and heat around 
the centers where resistance converts lines of gravity into 
glowing atoms of creative energy prepared for the joint 
embrace of soil and atmosphere in their nurture of seed, 
leaf, bud and blossom up to their perfected growths. 

The work of building in all living growing forms of 
organic matter is carried forward by evenly balanced 
attractions and repulsions. The law of the falling weight 
and of the lifting weight is the law of gravity; above and 
below a common equatorial plane or center of rest the 
burdened currents flow, while along this plane they are 
deprived of their strength and deposit their burdens. 

We can readily see that the flow of the positive and neg- 
ative currents from the battery plates through the freely 
conducting wires at their immense velocity, move under 
the power of attractions as falling weights descend toward 
the earth; as they meet with resistance they are dashed 



154 SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT. 

into a glow of light and heat as a rapidly falling meteor, 
meeting with the resistance of the atmosphere, is kindled 
into a flame. Their like behavior in encountering resist- 
ance demonstrates the materiality of electric currents 
and we leave it for Prof. Tyndall to elucidate our position 
with one of his beautiful experiments found on page 58 of 
"Heat as a Mode of Motion." He says, after dealing with 
the question of gravital light and heat in the sun evolved 
from falling meteoric matter upon the body of the sun. 
"Let me now pass from the sun to something less, in fact, 
to the opposite pole of Nature. And here that divine 
power of the human intellect which annihilates mere mag- 
nitude in its dealings with law, comes conspicuously into 
play. Our reasoning applies not only to suns and planets, 
but equally so to the very ultimate atoms of which matter 
is composed. 

"A diamond is pure carbon, and carbon burns in oxygen. 
I have here a diamond held fast in a loop of platinum 
wire ; I will heat the gem to redness in this flame,, and 
then plunge it into this jar which contains oxygen gas. 
See how it brightens on entering the jar of oxygen, and 
now it glows like a terrestrial star with a pure white light. 
How are we to figure the action here going on ? Exactly 
as you would present to your minds the conception of 
meteorites showering down upon the sun. The concep- 
tions are, in quality the same, and to the intellect the one 
is not more difficult than the other. You are to figure the 
atoms of oxygen showering against this diamond on all 
sides. They are urged towards it by what is called chem- 
ical affinity, but this force, made clear, presents itself to 



SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT. 155 

the mind as pure attraction, of the same mechanical qual- 
ity, if I may use the term, as gravity. 

•'Every oxygen atom as it strikes the surface, and has its 
motion of translation destroyed by its collision with car- 
bon, assumes the motion which we call heat; and this 
heat is so intense, the attractions exerted at these molec- 
ular distances are so mighty that the crystal is kept white- 
hot, and the compound, formed by the union of its atoms 
with those of the oxygen, flies away as carbonic acid gas. 1 ' 

I have here given the experiment with the explanation 
of the experimenter, though given to represent the theory 
of an incandescent sun drawing to himself cosmical mat- 
ter in a solid state, and having multiplied its power by 
gravital velocity becomes incandescent and radiates its 
light and heat as sun energy back into space, a theory 
which makes the sun, which it claims is the sole cause of 
light and heat, depend upon solid cosmical matter for its 
support multiplied by gravital energy which the sun is 
supposed to impart to the descending mass, and which it 
seems desirable to note in contrast with the teachings of 
the electro- magnet which is our guide in our search after 
the true source of light and heat. 

The currents of the battery and of the magnet appear to 
us as elements of matter moving under the power Of grav- 
ital energy which appear as light and heat when dashed 
against resisting bodies of matter causing a mingling of 
their broken elements in cohesive chemical unions in space. 
It is thus that the light and heat of creation are evolved in 
the grand process of world building and also in the devel- 
opment of all forms of organic life from matter. And 



156 SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT. 

here comes in that wonderful law of gravitai motion that 
"resistance awakens or increases °' power. " 

It is to this end we desired the testimony of the great 
experimenter that the gravitai lines of energy dashed upon 
the sun laden with elements of matter through resistance 
appear as light and heat upon the surface of the sun. 
Granting this in the case of the diamond and it is granted 
as the law of sunlight, earth-light, and leads us to an 
acquaintance with light and heat from which we have 
heretofore been shut out. 

The diamond experiment succeeded finely in the hands 
of the professor, for he had a flame in which to heat his 
diamond. Let him show how the sun became a heated, 
molten body and hence a radiator of heat and at the same 
time holding all the planets to their paths from his attract- 
ing gravitai energy and then the whole solar system would 
become as luminous as the heated diamond in oxygen gas. 

The power of electrical and magnetic currents as devel- 
oped in the electro-magnet is too well understood to need 
further elucidation. 

These currents we have also noticed are gathered to the 
magnet from surrounding space indicating a polarizing 
energy present with all forms of matter. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
LIGHT AS BUILDER. 

IT NOW remains for us to follow with thought the ele- 
ments of matter into which the falling currents are 
broken when arrested by resistants in their paths of motion. 
We have seen how light and heat are evolved, from what 
they are evolved, and we now ask what they become in the 
evolution ? 

And first we find them repellent forces. They come to 
the cognizance of our senses as the recoil from arrested 
motion of elementary atoms of matter, each atom charged 
with repulsive energy or lifting power equal to the velocity 
of its fall. It comes into place as a falling weight, and 
exerts its new power as a repelling energy. As such, all 
forms of life and motion take it in and partake of its power 
of exaltation. 

The light has in it a magazine of power able to lift all 
falling weights to the plane from which they have fallen, 
to endow with creative energy every agency that has work 
to do in the great field of material progression. Light 
illuminates the high plane of atomic generative embrace. 
It marks the initial points where all life germs begin to put 
on the wrappings of material form, and it holds in the 
evenly poised balances of its omnipotence the daily 
strength of every thing that has life. It is also wedded 



158 LIGHT AS BUILDER. 

to the co-ordinating power of attraction from which it 
cannot be separated. As light and heat appear as the 
results of gravital concussion receiving their lifting energy 
from atoms of matter resisted in their radial fall under the 
power of attraction, so they perform their impulsive work 
in a single track and in turn come again under the cold 
dark power of attraction. . The electric spark marks with 
its light the period of its strength, so the illuminating and 
warming ray of the sunbeam is but a passing radiance. 
Its illuminating lines pass from darkness to darkness again 
at the rate of 180,000 miles in each second of time. By 
this circle of lifting and falling energy held in equilibrium 
of strength and motion by gravital centers and planes of 
rest all mechanical power is evolved and all creative work 
is done in the entire universe of matter and force. Thus 
the material energy of the "somewhere" comes through the 
constantly swinging gates of light and heat, laden with 
the "somewhat" from which springs into form and place all 
things that have life and all conditions of matter that are 
necessary to sustain and perpetuate life. 

It is the light that reveals to us the vibrating lines of 
material form that we have regarded as constituting the 
great currents of space, and that are primary to all aggre- 
gations of matter; hence we by no means shrink from the 
thought that the gravital floods that are poured upon the 
great bodies of matter by attraction, and that are lifted 
radiant with the light of repulsion, thereby liberate or 
surrender those elementary gases and metallic elements that 
are built by chemical affinities into material organic- 
structures. 



LIGHT AS BUILDER. 159 

The fact that chemical affinities are all under the control 
of electrical energy, and atoms enter into molecular unions 
from opposite electrical states, teaches that the sources of 
supply are from electro-magnetic currents. 

It is well understood that atomic strength is greatest in 
atoms when first liberated from former unions. They are 
in the language of the chemist in a nascent state. 

A rapid change of state of the elements of matter causes 
those rapid vibrations that report themselves to our senses 
as light and heat. By this change of state the elements 
are prepared to enter into the organic structures of all 
growing forms of being, and they are built into such forms 
by the working energy of the sunbeam. 

Prof. Draper, of New York, has devoted a chapter in 
his scientific memoirs to the inquiry a of the force included 
in planets." He has carried forward his work under the 
inquiry, Whence has the force that manifests itself as heat 
and light in a flame been derived? ' k The light of the 
flame," he says, "is derived from particles of solid carbon 
issuing from combustible matters with which the wick, or 
gas jet is fed ; these solid particles, passing from a low 
temperature to a white heat and undergoing eventually 
complete oxidation, escape into the atmosphere as car- 
bonic- acid gas. It may be said without much error of 
such flame-giving compounds as we are here considering, 
that they are for the most part compounds of carbon with 
hydrogen. Under the form of oils and fats these combus- 
tible substances are derived directly or indirectly from the 
vegetable world." Thus in the mind of Dr. Draper, the 
light and heat that warm and illuminate our dwellings and 



K)U LIGHT AS BUILDEK. 

the light of the sun's rays are the same ; for after a series 
of experiments with growing plants in which he shows con- 
clusively that without the direct action of the sun there is 
no absorption of growing strength to the plant, he says, 
" Force cannot be created, it cannot spring spontaneously 
out of nothing. 

"The answer is, it came from the sun." 

This is his emphatic answer concerning both the flame 
consuming plant structures, and the force of the flame that 
builds them. It is a sun-force. Again he says, "When 
we read by gas or by the rays of a petroleum lamp, the 
light we use was derived from the sun perhaps millions of 
years ago. The plants of those ancient days, acting as 
plants do now under the influence of sunshine, separate 
carbon from the carbonic acid of the atmosphere by asso- 
ciating it with the radiant energy they had absorbed, and 
this remained for an indefinite time enclosed, as it were, 
in the now combustible material, ready to be disengaged 
as soon as the reverse action, oxidation, takes place, return- 
ing them to commingle as heat with the active forces of 
the world. Much of what has here been said applies to 
hydrogen as well as carbon. Hydrogen is derived, under 
similar conditions, from the decomposition of water or 
ammonia. When its oxidation recurs it delivers up, under 
the form of heat, the energy it had absorbed." Page 187 
of Memoirs. 

Now, while the experiments reported in confirmation of 
the above statements are of the highest importance in the 
guidance of thought to the source of that energy that 
appears in the growing plant, and that is stored up in the 



LIGHT AS BUILDER. 161 

wood and coal of our forests and mountains, at the same 
time the reasoning seems to fail in leading to conclusions 
that satisfy inquiry. Carbon and oxygen are here referred 
to as "flame-giving compounds;" the former, he teaches, 
is derived from the atmosphere, the latter from ammonia 
or water. We press the inquiry a step farther back of 
the atmosphere and back of ammonia and water and ask, 
whence came the carbon and the hydrogen of these com- 
pounds? And if it should be answered, they came from the 
sun, then we press the inquiry a step farther back and ask, 
from whence came the sun ? To this Prof. Draper answers, 
"he is the issue of nebular condensation." This answer 
suggests two more steps backward to the "beginning" and 
we inquire, whence came the nebula? and whence the 
power of condensation ? 

We suggest that condensation is gravitai attraction, and 
gravital attraction causes matter to move on radial lines 
towards a gravital center; but with the power of attraction 
the balancing power of repulsion always appears. This 
power impels matter always at right angles to radial lines, 
and hence nebular condensation must have been carried 
forward under the care of the balancing energies of attrac- 
tion and repulsion. These two correlate forces must have 
held under control nebulous matter or elements of matter 
as they now hold under control the great globes of the 
solar system. Prof. Draper has made a distinction in his 
Memoir between the energy of the sun and the elements 
of the atmosphere that he has designated flame-giving 
compounds. 

It seems to us that he has attempted in theory a feat 



162 LIGHT AS BUILDER. 

that no chemist has ever been able to perform in the lab- 
oratory, i. e., to separate atoms of matter or elements of 
matter from the energy of matter. 

The energy of world-building is in the atom as truly as 
the material of world-building. Cosmical matter could 
have had no place upon the plane of creative work without 
the sustaining and guiding presence of cosmical energy. 
There is no sun energy of greater power than carbon and 
hydrogen; the energy, too, of these elements of matter is 
in exact measure to the atoms, and they enter into com- 
binations by atomic measures. Hence the so-called 
absorption of sun energy by the leaves of plants is simply 
atomic attraction. If carbon is thus gathered in the 
leaves and taken into the circulation of the sap and depos- 
ited in the growing structure of the plant by the sunlight, 
may we not affirm that it is carbon from the sunlight, 
which Dr. Draper teaches is the principal element in the 
"flame-giving compound" that is thus taken into the cir- 
culation of the plant, and not carbon from the atmosphere. 

We deem it of the first importance that we make no 
error here as to the source of those atoms that are built into 
carboniferous structures of matter. 

Both the light of the sun and the atmosphere are neces- 
sary to plant life, but which is the sovereign builder hold- 
ing all of the conditions of life within its structure? The 
atmosphere is simply a mixture of two gases — the one a 
burden bearer and the other one of the most active agen- 
cies in Nature, but in it there is no place for an agency of 
such wonderful power, and so marked in character as 
either carbon or hydrogen. A trace of carbonic acid is 



LIGHT AS BUILDER, 168 

found in the atmosphere also of ammonia; but even these 
may well be regarded as simply atmospheric impurities. 
There is no store of carbon in the atmosphere in any 
respect equal to the demands of plant structure. 

Again the oxygen of the atmosphere only has an affinity 
for carbon when heated, and then, as in the glowing flame 
of combustion or in the building flame of the sun, oxygen 
comes to the carbon to aid either in its release from, or 
building into structure and when the carbon and oxygen 
unite forming carbonic acid the compound is one and 
one-half times heavier than common air and consequently 
falls to the earth as valueless to growing structures as it is 
destructive of animal life. It is not easy for us to see how 
this heavy mixture could be lifted to the leaves of plants 
and trees by the sunlight, and if this difficulty be overcome 
a still greater one appears in the quenching power that it 
has over both light and heat that are necessary to plant life. 

We are taught "that the assumption of a green color by 
a germinating plant and the decomposition of carbonic 
acid by it are identical events," also "that sun-energy 
carries on this work of decomposition. ' ' We have already 
quoted the authority of Dr. Draper, designating carbon 
and hydrogen, •'flame bearing compounds." Now in the 
full knowledge of the fact that the leaves of plants do take 
in carbon when exposed to the rays of the sun, while 
immersed in water containing carbonic acid, we affirm that 
the chief supply of carbon to plants is liberated from the 
direct rays of the sun, the sunlight not only furnishing the 
energy of carbon assimilation but the building substances 
of assimilation. 



164 LIGHT A.vS BUILDER. 

If the sun have power to take up carbon from its com- 
panionship with oxygen, carrying it into the circulation of 
the plant, we ask, may he not also convey in his self-evolv- 
ing flame all the substances that plant-structure demands ? 
In short, may not the sunlight be the beginning and the 
end of the series of material transmutations in Nature 
rather than the atmosphere. 

May not the conservation of atoms as well as of energy, 
rest in the ever balancing flame of the sunbeam ? Dr. 
Draper says, "Plants obtain carbon from the atmosphere; 
it constitutes the basis of their combustible portions. 
Sooner or later it suffers oxidation, turns back into the 
condition of carbonic acid, and is diffused again into the 
atmosphere. There is a never-ending series of cycles 
through which it runs: now it is in the air, now a part of 
the plant, now back again in the air and the same is true 
as regards the energy with which it is associated. Derived 
from the sunbeam it lay hidden in the plant, awaiting 
re-oxidation; then it was delivered, escaping under the 
form of heat or light, and remingling with the universal 
cosmic force from which it had been of old derived from 
the sun, or perhaps more correctly speaking, the sun him- 
self was derived." Page 188-9. 

Here we find a distinction clearly drawn between car- 
bon and sun energy, or cosmic force. The cycle of car- 
bon is from the carbonic acid of the air to the carbon of 
the plant and back again into the carbonic acid of the air; 
this gives the swing of carbon in plants from oxygen to 
oxygen; while "the energy with which it is associated" has 
a cycle from the sun to the plant ; "where awaiting re- ox- 



LIGHT AS BUILDER. 165 

idation if is delivered, escaping under the form of heat or 
light," "remingling with the universal cosmic force;" 
here, the swing of cosmic energy is from space through 
the sun to the plant and back again under the form of 
light and heat to cosmic force. By carefully analyzing 
these so-called cycles of matter and energy as separate from 
each other, we find carbon primarily in the possession of 
oxygen, from which it is liberated by sun energy and built 
into the plant, from which it is delivered by re-oxidation, 
thus liberating the sun energy in the form of light or 
heat, while it is again held in the possession of oxygen, 
and held in the air as carbonic acid ready for a new trans- 
mutation. 

Without raising the inquiry here, From whence oxygen 
and carbon, if not from sunlight, we ask : Whence the 
energy of oxygen and carbon that hold them in the 
molecular condition of carbonic acid if not from the sun? 
Again, how can the subordinate energy of oxygen liberate 
from the plant sun-energy that is the commanding cosmic 
force that takes on in its working power over matter the 
form of light and heat? Again it may be that carbon and 
hydrogen, which we have already learned are chief ele- 
ments in a "flame-giving compound," command oxygen 
and are sovereign elements so that they lead the cycle of 
material transformations from the sun-flame of building to 
the oxidizing flame of combustion, and there the cycle is 
complete from cosmic energy and atoms of space through 
the sunlight to plant-forms and from plant-forms back 
through the flame of combustion to cosmic conditions of 
space. 



CHAPTER XV. 
SCIENTIFIC KEVELATIONS. 

ANEW era in scientific discovery had its beginning 
with Copernicus less than four hundred years ago. 
This philosopher announced an hypothesis of planetary 
motion that was not only opposed to the teaching of phi- 
losophers but was also opposed to the teachings of religion 
and in seeming opposition to the testimony of the senses. 

The spherical form of the earth, its revolution upon its 
axis in about twenty-four hours of time and its revolution 
around the sun in each year of three hundred and sixty- 
five days were too wonderful to gain the belief of the 
people of that age who had been reared to an unquestion 
ing faith in miracles wrought by special divine interposition 
in direct opposition to the well known order of Nature's 
laws. 

To those who knew nothing of the western hemisphere, 
or of the boundaries of the seas, oceans and continents of 
the earth, the teaching of Copernicus respecting the form 
and velocities of the earth in its daily and annual revolu- 
tions in its path around the sun, was more difficult of 
belief than all the miraculous teachings of the preceding 
ages. A new heaven and a new earth were opened up to 
discovery and the old heaven and the old earth as they 
had viewed them, must pass away and give place to the 
new, or the new philosophy must be disproved. 

It is no wonder that the man who had gained the first 



SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS. 1<>7 

conception of the solar system as it now stands revealed 
to scientific thought, should withhold his book revealing 
his discoveries for a third of a century. Such men are the 
true divine prophets of the past — the seers of the ages, 
and in their day are counted as profane by those who cling 
to the traditions of the past. Men like Copernicus, Kep- 
ler and Newton confer rich blessings upon the coming ages 
though they live as the rejected infidel dreamers of their 
own age, while their disciples in turn become scoffers at the 
discoverers of new truths. Thus the advanced thinkers in 
science find each age prepared to reject new discoveries 
that conflict with the reputed wisdom of the schools 
founded upon the teachings ot the old masters. 

The steps of progress that have been taken in science 
under the new era of discovery led by Copernicus, suc- 
ceeded by Galileo. Kepler, Newton, Franklin, Galvani, 
Faraday, GErestead and others have each opened new fields 
of thought that are sweeping away many false hypotheses 
of scientific thinkers and still give promise of new discov- 
eries more wonderful than those of the past. 

The tendency of all new discoveries is to simplify sci- 
entific teachings and unify the forces and facts that exper- 
imental science is constantly disclosing. The Copernican 
system of astronomy impressed Kepler with the thought 
that the motion of the heavenly bodies in space was gov- 
erned by some universal law, that could be reduced to the 
exactness of mathematical formulas, and he sought to verify 
his thought by nineteen years of constant study and obser- 
vation, and was rewarded by the discovery of the three 
great laws of planetary motion : 



]68 SCIENTIFIC BEVEL ATIONS. 

i. Every planet revolves in an eliptical orbit about the 
sun, which occupies one of the foci of such orbit. 

2. The velocity of the planet in every point of its orbit 
is such that a line drawn from the center of the sun to the 
center of the planet will sweep over equal areas in equal 
times. 

3. The square of the times of revolution of each planet, 
divided by the cube of its mean distance from the sun, 
will give a like quotient for all the planets. 

The discovery of these three laws, confirmed by mathe- 
matical demonstrations the hypothesis of Kepler, that all 
of the motions of the planets in space are firmly held under 
the control of one universal law of motion. The same 
conviction of the great law of motion, led the mind of 
Newton to the discovery of the law of universal gravita- 
tion, viz., The force with which two material particles 
respectively attract each other, is directly proportioned to 
their masses, and inversely proportioned to the square of 
the distances between their centers. 

This discovery revealed the energy of planetary motion 
as residing in the atoms of matter that constitute the 
mass of the planetary bodies complemented by the electro- 
magnetic currents that bear them along fixed orbital paths 
around fixed centers in free space. The reader may here 
note, that as this law of Sir Isaac Newton discloses the law 
governing the energy of the atom as truly as the energy of 
planetary bodies in their paths of motion, it follows that 
all molecular work in chemical unions and attractions that 
bind matter together in organic structures, and that give 
weight or power to falling bodies, together with molecular 



SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS. 169 

repulsions of atoms that are consequent upon the oxidation, 
combustion or volatilization of matter, and which produce 
the mechanical powers applied to the driving a water wheel, 
a steam engine, or a galvanic battery, must be referred to 
attraction of gravitation alone as the source of their power. 
In other words, all power of motion in matter consists of 
that universal energy of attraction and repulsion that is 
inherent in the primary atoms of which all bodies of mat- 
ter are created. Hence, the scientist is brought face to 
face with the atoms of the sixty-three or more substances 
that are built into world structures as the real workers in 
all departments of creative work that belong to world 
building. Universal power is self-resident in the material 
form of the atom, while universal work consists in self- 
guided atomic unions or affinities. These thoughts lead 
us to the contemplation of foundation elements of all 
world-building, that are unseen, imponderable, immeas- 
ureable and eternal. The fact that bodies of matter attract 
directly as mass, has led philosophers to treat of the law of 
planetary motion as the law of universal attraction of 
gravitation, losing sight of the insensible repellent energy 
of matter in the planetary body, and the space through 
which it moves, that gives it its revolutionary velocity, 
constituting the equation of forces that marks out the path 
of the planet around the sun. 

For a like reason we find the experimental work of sci- 
entific research occupied chiefly with the phenomena of 
matter in mass. It consists largely in weighing, measur- 
ing, dividing and mingling matter, having sensible pro- 
portions arising from the energy of attraction. Matter 

12 



170 SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS. 

reduced to its primary atoms under the. extreme energy of 
repulsion, becomes occult, and the energy that is in it 
works secretly and even silently ; hence, our teachers of 
science treat of matter in only three states — the solid, the 
liquid and the gaseous. Over these three states attraction 
preponderates over repulsion and submits to exact quanti- 
tive measures. A state of matter above the gaseous reaches 
into the unknown and can only be reached by hypothetical 
reasoning, based upon the traces of its presence and power 
over matter in the three quantitive states. A correct 
hypothesis respecting matter in a fourth state may be 
gained from careful observation of material phenomena, 
that can only be accounted for by the working presence of 
matter outside of the three states of matter. Such hypoth- 
eses may be verified by mathematical diagrams and dem- 
onstrations, e. g. n The elliptical orbits of the planets 
were discovered by Kepler, after having spent much time 
and observation in attempting to verify the hypothesis that 
such orbits were true circles. He found the calculated 
places of the planets upon the theory of circles did not 
agree with the actual places that planets occupied in their 
orbits of motion. 

But when he assumed the theory of the ellipticity of 
their orbits, both observation and mathematical calcula- 
tions agreed, and the elements of the orbits of the planets 
thus became actually known. So, also, his hypothesis of 
an exact uniformity between the time periods of the revo- 
lutions of planets around the sun, and their distances from 
the sun, was verified in the discovery of his third law of 
motion, as stated on page 168. Again, Sir Isaac Newton's 



SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS. 171 

theory of the great law of gravity as a universal law, gov- 
erning the order and periods of planetary motion, while 
it also caused matter to have weight determining its 
descent towards the center of the earth, remained for years 
as a mere theory, impossible of demonstration until a cor- 
rect distance of the earth from the sun was obtained, and 
then demonstration established the correctness of his the- 
ory. In this case the theory of the philosopher was more 
correct than the mathematical measurements of planetary 
distances from the sun. 

Again, in the science of chemistry there is a theory ot 
atomic measures that gives mathematical formulas accord- 
ing to which atoms of matter, of which chemists can gain 
no actual knowledge, are united together in the formation 
of all chemical unions under the rigid law of atomic 
affinities. 

Thus they find, all ponderable co?nbinations of matter 
are built upfront, and by the unseen and imponderable. 
In the formation of water, two gases, oxygen and hydro- 
gen, unite in the proportion of eight parts oxygen to one 
part of hydrogen; i. e, nine pounds of water contains 
eight pounds of oxygen and one pound of hydrogen. 
These gases, the scales of the chemist may mete out, but 
there is demanded the energy of an electric shock to form 
the union, and this third element of power converts the 
union of the two gases into a new body, having none of 
the tests of their gaseous conditions. In this chemical 
union there is revealed the presence of a creative agency 
in matter that comes from the unseen and imponderable 
atomic form of matter that is not included in matter in its 



172 SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS. 

three states. From this simple formula, according to 
which the waters of the great oceans are built, we learn 
that they are created from and by the unseen and impon- 
derable, and yet they come from material conditions and 
potencies of matter under the guidance of a self-determin- 
ing efficiency that knows nothing of modification or 
change in the order and measure of their creation. Again 
the salt held in solution in the waters of the ocean and 
that becomes crystalized into cubes of rocky structure, is 
formed from the union of the metal sodium with the pow- 
erful bleaching agency called chlorine. These substances 
unite in the proportions of 23 parts sodium to 35.5 chlo- 
rine, and which are powerful destructive agents when 
taken separately, but when united become a necessary sub- 
stance in the preparation of our food. Here too, the pres- 
ence of an electrical energy presides over the union of the 
sodium and the chlorine, creating a new form of matter or 
a new substance. Electro-positive sodium, and electro- 
negative chlorine, unite by selective affinities according 
to the great law of all electro-magnetic energy, namely, 
unlike elements attract while like elements repel. 

Again, the chlorine of salt has a strong elective affinity 
for the hydrogen of water, which is the cause of gathering 
the great bodies of water, causing the oceans, into the same 
groupings of materials, hence we have one of the two great 
divisions of earth and stone structure. The hostility of 
the elements thus combined in the waters of the oceans to 
animal and vegetable life as found upon the continents, 
retarded land formations, and is doubtless the chief cause 
of the deep depressions and low levels that constitute the 



SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS. 17H 

great natural reservoirs of the waters of the vast oceans. 
Chemistry thus gives us the formula of Nature, rigidly 
observed in the formation of that form of matter denomin- 
ated by our philosophers the second, or liquid state. 
Three gases, oxygen, hydrogen and chlorine, and one 
metal, sodium, two of the elements, sodium and hydrogen, 
being electro-positive, and two, oxygen and chlorine, 
electro-negative, bound together by natural elective affini- 
ties make the salt waters of the ocean, and these elements 
thus bound together cover two-thirds of the surface of the 
earth. 

By like rigid formulas, and in like order the solid 
state of matter is formed. In the building of the con- 
tinents the dominating element or substance is car- 
bon in some of its protean forms. We become familiar with 
this substance in charcoal, mineral coal, plumbago and the 
diamond. Carbon is necessary to both animal and veget- 
able life. "It is one of the most abundant substances in 
Nature, forming nearly one-half of the entire vegetable 
kingdom, and being a prominent constituent of limestone, 
corals, marble and magnesian rocks." Carbon is an elec- 
tro-positive element and has, at a high temperature, a 
strong affinity for oxygen. It performs its work in crea- 
tion and in the destruction of organic substances supported 
by that great working agent, oxygen, at an elevated tem- 
perature, and at the same time its atoms resist the destroy- 
ing power of the intensest heat. It is indestructible in the 
heat of combustion, while in its union with hydrogen and 
oxygen, the cells of plants are built up in the radial heat 
of the sunbeam, thereby storing up inflammable com- 



174 SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS. 

pounds that are easily consumed in the lighting and heat- 
ing of our dwellings and in creating the strong blasts of 
furnaces used for the reduction of the ores of metals, and 
also in creating heat in the glowing furnaces of engines of 
power. 

Without this wonderful element of plant-life, animal- 
life, and of large portions of rock structures, the conti- 
nents could not have been built. In fact, without carbon 
the light and heat of the sunbeam, and the elevated tem- 
perature promotive of organic life would be impossible. 

But the chemist finds that even this sovereign element 
of creative power unites with other elements in accord- 
ance with exact mathematical formulas that are ever the 
same. "Neither in the growing plant, animal, or rock, 
or in the wildest conflagration" is there a departure from 
the fixed law of atomic formulas of combination or disso- 
ciation. And it is worthy of notice, that all elements 
entering into organic life-structures, observe the same law 
of electro-magnetic affinities that we have already noticed 
in lower combinations of elements. We suggest that we 
do well to here raise the inquiry, though we can give no 
answer, whether there be not a law of a dual energy inhe- 
rent in the elements of earth-building that presides over 
and commands all creative work? 

In every chemical formula representing the creating ol 
quantitive matter we discover that the elements and energy 
that build up the solids and liquids of matter though 
imponderable and unseen, observe rigidly the order of 
mathematical quantitive measures. 

The formulas of Kepler and Newton that have given to 



SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS. 17") 

science the mathematical equations of energy and motion 
derived from the distances of the planets from the sun, 
their time periods of revolution, etc., give also the con- 
ception of a universal law of gravital attractions and repul- 
sions that is so fixed in its order of work as to disclose to 
the astronomer accurate data, from which he reduces plan- 
etary motions to the unchanging verities of mathematical 
problems. In other words, mathematical numbers and 
the law of gravitation hold the same relation to each other 
that numbers do to quantities of sensible measure. There 
is, therefore, in the problems of the astronomer firmly 
established a highway of thought along which he can press 
the line of his discoveries with unerring certainty into 
the material presence of the unseen and imponderable. 

Let us make the effort to trace lines of material measure 
across the gulf that lies between matter and material energy, 
in their ponderable and imponderable states between mat- 
ter under the predominating power of attraction, and 
matter under the dissociate state of repulsion. 

The order which we have noted in the chemical unions 
of some of the elements of matter has given us the concep- 
tion of atoms and energy as the first things of solid and 
liquid matter. 

These first things are so real to the chemist that he 
definitely notes their presence in the changes of the states 
of substances, and designates the exact order of their work, 
and yet they have their home in forms so infinitesimal that 
they elude the search of microscopic glasses, or the touch 
of the most delicate organs of sense. 

Says Balfour Stewart "a simple elementary atom is 



17() SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS. 

truly an immortal being, and enjoys the privilege of 
remaining unaltered and essentially unaffected amid the 
most powerful blows that can be dealt against it; it is 
probably in a state of ceaseless activity and change of 
form, but it is nevertheless always the same. In this 
ceaseless activity there is a barrier to an intimate acquaint- 
ance with molecules and atoms, for even if we could see 
them they would not remain at rest sufficiently long to 
enable us to scrutinize them. Could we see an atom, and 
could we illuminate it by a flash of electricity, the atom 
would most probably have vibrated many times during the 
exceedingly small time of the flash. In fine, the limits 
placed upon our senses, with respect to space and time, 
equally preclude the possibility of our ever becoming 
directly acquainted with these exceedingly minute bodies, 
which are nevertheless the raw materials of which the 
whole universe is built. " 

It is readily seen that when we try to analyze matter 
and resolve it into its elements that we are at once guided 
into the presence of first forms of matter and first acts of 
energy that make all things of creation, certain and pos- 
sible. 

They are grand sovereign potencies and sovereign forms 
that work all things according to identity of being and 
elective affinities that have been with them from the first 
gathering of atoms in space under the great law of attrac- 
tion of gravitation. 

Matter could never have been gathered under any other 
law. The rocky foundations of the earth could not have 
been laid, the ocean beds prepared and their vast bodies 



SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS. 177 

of water gathered, the continents could not have been 
lifted out of the waters, covered with lakes and rivers, 
with mountains and plains, with forests and verdure- 
clothed fields; and above all, the infinite forms of animal 
life that are fed upon earth's teeming harvests, without 
the established order of atomic attractions that we have 
imperfectly sketched. 

The atoms of matter that Balfour Stewart has styled 
" immortal, and the raw materials of which the universe 
is built," by the living force that is in them, give sub- 
stance and form to all of the varied combinations of matter 
into which they enter, as truly as the seed gives character 
to the plant-form that is unfolded from it. 

We have found that each formula of chemical unions 
establishes an equation of both force and atomic numbers. 

Each atom has within itself a dual energy of attraction 
and repulsion, or of choosing and rejecting; but at the same 
time all are not endowed with a like energy. They are 
divided equally according to electro-magnetic law, so that 
atoms charged with opposite polarities are alone united in 
stable compounds or chemical affinities. The raw material 
then, out of which the universe is built is equally divided 
in its elementary conditions, and it is certain that the 
conditions of the atoms are impressed upon the organic 
unions into which atoms are built, under their selective 
affinities. This leads us to the acceptance of Sir Isaac 
Newton's law of universal gravitation in its fullest and 
broadest sense, so that all forms of matter are built up 
under the constant working energy of the electro-magnetic 
forces. If the question be here raised as to the whence of 



178 SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS. 

matter and of creative energy, we find the answer at our 
hand, and say, They came from the great magnetic sea 
of balanced forces, in which the suns and planets con- 
stituting all worlds are balanced upon accurately poised 
centers of equal attractions and repulsions. 

Of the nature of this sea of forces, we may perhaps learn 
more than we have heretofore thought possible. It is a 
sea as boundless as space and pervaded by lines of metallic 
form or currents of virgin matter that compass space with 
their vibrating energy. 

Professor Crooks, of England, by experimenting with 
direct reference to an acquaintance with the condition of 
space when deprived of the presence of air or the gases, 
under the exhausted bell glass of an air pump, has made 
the experimental discovery of what he calls the fourth state 
of matter. He says, "So distinct are the phenomena ot 
this experiment from anything that occurred in air or gas 
at the ordinary tension, that he was led to assume that we 
were here brought face to face with matter in a fourth state 
or condition, — a condition as far removed from the state 
of gas as gas was from the liquid, In some of its proper- 
ties radiant matter was as material as wood or iron, while 
in other properties it almost assumed the character of 
radiant energy. We had touched the border-land where 
matter and force seem to merge into each other, — the 
shadowy realm between the known and the unknown." 
He ventured to think "that the greatest scientific problems 
of the future would find their solution in this border-land 
and even beyond, where, it seemed to him, lay ultimate 
realities, subtle, far-reaching and wonderful." 



SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS. 170 

Let the thought of Mr. Crooks be here grasped, that 
radiant matter and radiant energy have their home in space 
and then we learn that the great sources of creative organic 
power and form flow from space to body, and hence each 
revolving sun or planet gathers power and atomic matter 
from its field of motion according to its gravital strength 
of attraction. 

Radiant matter, so far as planetary bodies are concerned 
is not in any case wasting energy and wasting matter such 
as is witnessed under a devouring flame, but on the other 
hand it is the radiant matter of space under the strong 
gravital attraction of planetary bodies, and is drawn with 
the velocity of light on radial lines toward the centers of 
such bodies, and through atmospheric resistance becomes 
light and heat in glowing lines of gravital energy. These 
radiant lines of energy and matter are attacked by oxygen, 
torn asunder and broken into atomic forms that seek rest 
upon the heated body of the planet according to the 
already noticed law of selective affinity. For it is to be 
remembered that we regard the radiant state of matter of 
Prof. Crooks as Balfour Stewart's raw material out of which 
the solids, liquids and gases of matter are formed. The 
reader is referred to a more full statement and elucidation 
of our thought in another part of this work. 

And now let us pass to a careful study of space filled 
with radiant matter and radiant energy and see if we have 
not already attained a better acquaintance with the state 
of matter in space than we have supposed. The thought 
that we have already reached is that of material universal 
unity. The laws of Kepler teach it. The law of universal 



180 SCIENTIFIC KEVELATIONS. 

gravitation teaches it. The electro-positive and electro- 
negative states of atoms teach it. The exact quantitive 
formulas of the chemist according to which all bodies of 
matter are created teach it. The uniformity of light from 
all worlds and in all ages confirms it. 



CHAPTER XVI. 
THE UNSEEN WORLD. 

THE unity of matter and the unity of force to the 
student of Nature elude discovery in an unseen 
land, while it is in vision sought for as a revelation from a 
land of promise. 

As we have seen in a former chapter that all forms of 
matter are organized out of invisible atoms and by invisi- 
ble forces, and yet according to rigid mathematical form- 
ulas, and as the same formulas will remain the same in all 
lands, so we may conclude they have been the same in all 
ages. This insight into the methods of Nature in organi- 
zation, carries thought back to the beginnings of creation, 
and also reveals the same agencies and elements around us 
ia space that have been bound together in the founda- 
tions upon which the heavens and the earth have been 
reared. Without the elements and energy of space there 
could be no solid land, no waters for rivers or oceans, and 
no atmosphere or light, making life possible. 

This being so, we gain acquaintance with all states of 
matter, and every form of energy, and all sources of power, 
by the careful study of Our own environment. The radiant 
energy'and the radiant matter that come to the philoso- 
pher in his experimental work, come to all -philosophers 
in all places upon the earth, and to all thinking beings in 
all worlds. 



182 THE UNSEEN WORLD. 

The planets sweep through space at immense velocities, 
our own earth moving at the rate of a thousand miles in 
each minute of time, compassing a circuit of 552,000,000 
of miles in a single year, and yet in all the long journey 
there come to us no new experiences denoting a change of 
environment, and to the earth there has come no new rev- 
elations in space in the ages past, and there can come none 
in the circles of the eternities to come. The light of the 
sunbeam has been an object of study for the philosophers 
of all ages, and it has always appeared as radiant energy, 
and now we are beginning to learn that it is also radiant 
matter. It takes but one more step of thoughtful inquiry 
to gain the conviction that the radiance of the sunbeam is 
simply an illumination of the radiant matter of the space 
around us in which we live and move and from which has 
come our life and being. 

These thoughts guide us, not only to the border-land ol 
elementary being but they also reveal in this border-land 
the perennial source of all material energy, whether crea- 
tive or mechanical. It must lead us also to discard the 
teachings of the philosophers of the past ages that the sun 
is the source of all power upon the earth. Sir John Her- 
schel writes, "The sun's rays are the ultimate source of 
almost every motion which takes place upon the surface ot 
the earth. By its heat are produced all winds, and those 
disturbances in the electric equilibrium of the atmosphere 
which give rise to the phenomena of lightning, and prob- 
ably also to all terrestrial action and the aurora. By their 
vivifying action vegetables are enabled to draw support 
from inorganic matter, and become in their turn the sup- 



THE UNSEEN WORLD. 183 

port of animals and man, and the source of those great 
deposits of dynamical efficiency which are laid up for 
human use in our coal strata." Referring the reader to a 
more full elucidation of the philosophy of elementary 
material energy on "Sunlight," page i, we desire here to 
simply call attention to the radiant matter of universal space 
as the primary source of all material power or of universal 
energy. The fact that the sun is the sensible expression of 
vast power, and that it far transcends all the planetary 
bodies of the solar system in manifestation of energy, does 
by no means teach that it is the source of material energy. 

The law of universal attraction of gravitation according 
to which sun and planets are united in one system of forces, 
simply reveals a reciprocal exchange of energy between 
sun and planets. The source of their power must be from 
without and around them. The fountain of energy must 
be superior to the mere sensible expression of such energy. 

The floods of radiant matter and radiant energy that 
enswathe sun and planets in their radial and orbital lines of 
omnipotent strength, are to these bodies the everlasting 
fountains from which flow through and around them all of 
their upholding and evolving power. 

As all sensible forms of matter are built from elementary 
atoms, so all sensible displays of power also find their 
source in the same elementary forms. 

Let it be noted that by radiant matter we do not have 
specific reference to light ; as we regard light as an affec- 
tion of radiant matter arising simply from a temporary 
elevation of temperature through resistance of the lines of 
radiant matter passing through a resisting medium. The 



184 THE UNSEEN WORLD. 

radiance of illumination enables us to look in upon radiant 
matter as it moves in space. The radial lines of the sun- 
beam are independent of the light and heat that are 
evolved from them. Light is not a "mode of motion" 
but an illumination of radiant lines of elementary matter 
in motion. Prof. Tyndall teaches by experiment, that 
the dark lines above and below the sensible spectrum as 
diffused by the prism, have more chemical and heating 
power than the illuminated lines, clearly teaching that the 
energy called light and heat belongs to the radiant lines of 
space resisted in their intense velocities of motion and 
their temperature raised by the work done in passing the 
resisting medium. We may well then eliminate light and 
heat from the class of imponderable forces, and regard 
them as simply indices of force or energy. If we thus can- 
cel out light and heat from the list of elementary or 
imponderable forces that science gives us, we have gravi- 
tation, mechanical force, electricity, magnetism, and 
chemical affinity. 

For this entire list of forces we may substitute the force 
of attraction and repulsion that exists between the electro- 
positive and electro-negative states of radiant matter and 
we have resolved all of the different manifestations of force 
into the co-working polarizing forces of electricty and 
magnetism. 

Now we have already shown by reference to the affinities 
of atomic forms of matter that they obey rigidly the law 
of magnetic attractions and repulsions in the formation of 
material compounds and in the growth of organic bodies, 
consequently we are constrained ' to regard all forms of 



THE UNSEEN WORLD. 185 

matter and all varieties of living organic bodies built from 
electro-magnetic elements of matter into electro-magnetic 
forms of being. 

It is therefore no marvel that the vast bodies of matter 
composing the great suns and sun systems of worlds should 
be held in perfect subjection to the polarizing forces of the 
magnet and that they should be so nicely balanced upon 
their centers of motion, that they should fly through space 
with such wonderful velocities, and that they should be 
fixed in the heavens in families bound together by indis- 
soluble ties of gravital affinity. 

We have here reached a plane of thought that enables 
us to take in the entire work of creation at a single glance. 
The beginning and the end of matter are brought into 
view in the completed circle of atomic work that goes on 
under the working energy of the so-called sunbeam from 
seed-time to harvest and from the harvest to the dying 
seed, giving promise of a second harvest. Radiant matter 
is drawn on radial lines to the center of the perfected seed 
passing through the resisting atmosphere and earth, that 
both warm and dissociate the lines of radiance into atoms 
which under the law of affinity are built silently in unerr- 
ing order into the evolving structure of the plant. Here 
the order of organic work in matter is from the extreme 
of repulsion through magnetic attractions drawing matter 
atom by atom to its true place in the growing organism. 
Through this same order all of matter in all worlds has 
passed under the guidance of the great law of universal 
gravitation from environing space toward fixed centers of 
growing strength, evolving all the grand results of life, 

13 



186 THE UNSEEN WORLD. 

form and motion. "As it was in the beginning " so it is 
now and so will it ever remain. The order of the work 
will never change; the even balance between attraction 
and repulsion will never be disturbed. The energy of all 
bodies of matter is measured by inherent energy of the 
atoms composing them and they are environed in a sea of 
radiant or repellent matter of equal strength to their 
strength of attraction measured by atomic units of strength. 



CHAPTER XVII. 
LATENT AND SENSIBLE POWER. 

THE new hypothesis that we have ventured to oppose to 
the teachings of science respecting the sources of ma- 
terial energy, devolves upon us the necessity of indicating 
the scientific boundary line between latent and sensible 
power, or between latent and sensible heat. Our hypoth- 
esis compels us to discover this boundary line in the inter- 
communion of the attracting and repellent dual energy of 
radiant matter. It will be an easy matter for the reader to 
accept the thought that the attracting and repelling energy 
of the opposite poles of a magnet reveal the simplest 
sources of power that we find- in matter. The peculiarity 
of the magnet, as a source of power, is, that it gathers its 
strength from its immediate environment, drawing from a 
source of power that is universal and eternal. Both con- 
ditions of power are here found in a bar of hardened steel, 
i. e., attraction and repulsion. These polar forces work 
across a neutral center of rest, revealing two equal hemi- 
spheres of radiant energy, limited by an equatorial plane 
of rest extended at right angles to the magnet, from its 
center of rest. 

These hemispheres of real energy being equally balanced, 
can of themselves make no display of power. To reveal 
their strength, other bodies capable of responding to mag- 
netic impulse must be brought into the field of their 
influence, and power is then revealed. But this power is 



188 LATENT AND SENSIBLE POWER. 

the power of aggregation, drawing to the magnet, as if it 
were itself a unit of energy, subordinate atoms of magnet- 
ically charged matter. 

Here we notice the display of power or energy, but not 
working power. The power of steam is a working power 
because the heat of the furnace has awakened in the 
molecules of water the power of repulsion and the tempor- 
ary repellent force of the heated atoms is passed to the 
steam engine and drives the followers of the piston rod 
back, and forth imparting power to working machinery. 

The latent power that has been treasured up in the wood 
and the water under the silently working forces of magne- 
tization, that have built up all organic forms of matter, is 
attacked by the disorganizing power of oxidation or com- 
bustion; the balance between the equal forces of attraction 
and repulsion that exists in the restful states of matter, is 
disturbed, and the repellent energy thus awakened imparts 
of its power within the resisting walls of the engine to the 
uses of machinery. 

Here we have power from the polar force of repulsion 
while from the revolving water-wheel we are enabled to 
take power from the equal force of attraction. In both 
cases it is a resultant from the disturbed balance of the 
dual polar forces of attraction and repulsion. Latent 
power is the established plane of the evenly balanced and 
evenly working forces of the magnet. Sensible power and 
sensible heat arise from a temporary mechanical disturbance 
of these forces, lifting atomic elements of matter violently 
above the neutral plane of balanced polarizing forces. 

Thus when we trace all forms of power to their source, 



LATENT AND SENSIBLE POWER. 189 

we shall find that source to be radiant energy in its two 
forms of radiant matter that are revealed both in the elec- 
tro-magnet and in the great planetary bodies of space. 
Both earth and magnet find a rest-center, and both attract 
and repel at their northern and southern poles, a unit of 
force. The dream of the enthusiast that mechanical 
power can be evolved from the elements of matter without 
the use of force in some form, cannot be realized from the 
fact that all energy of motion tends constantly to the rest 
plane of equally working forces of attraction and repulsion. 
This fact will limit all mechanical contrivances for the 
generation of power, to the one question of economy in 
generating and utilizing it. No advantages can be taken 
of the immensity of power working normally in matter for 
the great law of polarization holds all forms of energy to a 
fixed plane of an even balance. The magnet is a unit of 
latent power, and only reveals its strength in its disturbed 
state from other magnets. 

Again, we here learn that in the grand economy of cre- 
ation, the extremes of matter in their states of attraction 
and repulsion are co-ordinate and fixed sources of power. 
From radiant matter in space to solid matter in planetary 
forms or from solid matter to radiant matter, the work of 
the creative forces is carried forward. The lowest level of 
latent energy or latent heat is reached at the two extremes 
of gravital attractions and orbital repulsions. While the 
summit level of light-heat and creative energy is at the 
surface of body, where atmospheric resistance interposes a 
break to the free interchange of magnetic currents laden 
with oppositely charged forces. 



190 LATENT AND SENSIBLE POWER. 

Except in these atmospheric belts upon the surface of 
bodies, all of matter, both solid and radiant, is cold and 
dark, and hence the grand sources of power are latent and 
unrevealed to the evolving forms of organic being. It is 
therefore manifestly impossible that power should be trans- 
ferred from sun to earth, or from earth to sun except along 
the low plane of latent magnetic energy which is the low- 
est plane of temperature of interstellar space. A high 
state of temperature at the surface of the sun could have 
no possible effect upon the planets in shedding upon them 
light and heat, as Nature stores up her power in the latent 
and silent flow of the balanced polarizing forces of gravital 
energy. 

It is not possible to store up power at any temperature 
above the temperature of radiant energy, in its equally 
balanced and silently working lines of gravital attractions 
and gravital energy; and we have seen that gravital, radi- 
ant elementary matter works at the low temperature of the 
darkness of stellar space. 

The attraction of gravitation holds within its radiant 
floods, all of power adjusted to an equal balance, while it 
controls all of the grand revolutions and infinite velocities 
of matter in space. In its complete working unity it meets 
with no resistance, and consequently works throughout 
the entire universe at a low, even temperature. It works 
at the lowest possible level of latent power, or latent heat 
in matter. Hence, the grand velocities of radiant matter 
and of planetary bodies in space create no more disturb- 
ance from resistance than though they were at rest. The 
light and heat of the sun and planets arise from local dis- 



LATENT AND SENSIBLE POWEH. 191 

turbances of gravital attractions, confined to the atmos- 
pheric envelope surrounding them, and they maintain, 
their power and brightness from a constant atmospheric 
disturbance arising from the uniform presence of the 
atmosphere enveloping them. Hence, the light and heat 
of sun and planets are a constant quantity, because they 
are generated by a constant gravital power passing through 
a constantly resisting medium. The light of the sun 
would be quenched at once if the resisting atmospheric 
medium of the sun's environment could be instantly 
removed. In like manner would the light of the sun be 
put out if the sun's body should lose his low temperature 
of latent energy at which we have seen all gravital forces 
perform their constant work. Again, the sun cannot lose 
heat by radiation because it is generated by his own power 
of attraction, and consequently must hold all wasting or 
evolved elements from light or heat within his own grasp 
of power. As well might water flow up the sides of moun- 
tains, or stones and rocks be lifted into space as the mists 
of the ocean are lifted, as that the light and heat of the 
sun should be radiated millions of miles across free space 
to the planets; or in other words, that power generated in 
the form of light and heat on the body of the sun should 
be transferred to the planets as light and heat by radiation. 
There are but two forces that control the changes of 
matter; one is the force of attraction, or aggregation; the 
other is the force of repulsion, or diffusion. In free space 
these forces constitute the compound force of planetary 
motion. Under the combined influence of these forces 
attraction increases as the planet nears the sun's body, and 



192 LATENT AND SENSIBLE POWER. 

repulsion is correspondingly increased to preserve a balance 
of orbital motion. Hence, the planets as they approach 
the sun have their velocity increased, and as they recede 
their velocity is diminished. 

Now, heat upon the surface of the sun is local repellent 
energy exerted or awakened at the expense of the local 
attracting energy of the sun's body, if it be the heat of 
combustion; but the vast attracting energy of the sun that 
is equal to the centrifugal energy that drives the planets in 
their orbits must be immensely greater than the local 
repellent energy that may be awakened in the sun's photo- 
sphere ; consequently, the radiation of such matter as 
might be disturbed by local combustion on the surface of 
the sun would be neutralized and quenched by attraction 
at but an inconsiderable distance from the sun's body. 

The economy of the great forces of material creation 
is such that local attractions are always equal to local 
combustions . 

The low temperature at which universal gravitation 
exerts its power is the plane of conservation of force, and 
must ever preserve the universe from the over mastery of 
either one of the correlate forces of universal power. The 
universe of matter can neither "melt with fervent heat," 
nor "be rolled together like a scroll," so long as the cold 
dark, silently working forces of gravitation maintain their 
power over matter. 

By reviewing our position it will be seen that we regard 
light and heat as sensible displays of power arising from 
local disturbances of the balance that Nature persistently 
maintains between the two polar forces of gravital attrac- 



LATENT AND SENSIBLE POWER. 193 

tion and repulsion. These forces undisturbed, or unre- 
sisted, work silently and evenly, like a rapidly revolving 
wheel that is evenly centered and balanced. The wonder- 
ful power of motion in matter is latent because insensible. 
Resistance to this power awakens sensible displays of 
power equal to the power of resistance. It requires a con- 
stant resistant to give a constant sensible power. The 
sensible power will be determined by the power of resist- 
ance and at the local points of resistance. Temporary 
resistance will give only temporary sensible power, and 
such power will only be equal to the supply of resisting 
elements. Heat and light are to us sensible measures of 
either a constant or a temporary resistance to the forces of 
attraction and repulsion. Conservation of energy marks 
the limits of sensible power, always equal to the initial 
impulse of power imparted at the disturbing point of mo- 
tion. The heat units expended in lifting a body to any 
distance above the earth will be restored to the body in its 
return to the earth. The heat applied to lifting the body 
is that of repulsion, the heat acquired by the falling body 
is restored by attraction. The first is temporary resistance, 
the second is the measure of such resistance. 

Nothing is gained by the work thus performed, even if 
the falling body should do work in returning to the earth. 
The loss by combustion is only equivalent to the work 
performed by attraction. Thus the mechanical power 
gained by multiplying units of sensible heat by combustion 
is at the expense of heat stored up in some form lifted to 
its place above the level of latent heat by the influence of 
the sun. Hence our philosophers are already sounding an 



194 LATENT AND SENSIBLE POWER. 

alarm respecting the great loss that our supplies of coal 
and wood are suffering from the demands made upon them 
to create mechanical power. Now in the sensible work 
performed by the heat of the sun there is a vast accumula- 
tion, of power without any sensible source of waste. The 
wind and the waterfall are constant supplies of power capa- 
ble of doing mechanical work, and they are lifted to their 
positions of working power by the influence of the sun on 
the temperature of the earth. All forms of vegetable life 
are also nourished by the warming energy of the sunbeam 
and store up in their growing organisms vast supplies of 
heat energy for the support of animal life and furnishing 
fuel sufficient to meet all of the demands of civilization, 
for the cooking of food, the warming of dwellings, the 
heating of forges and furnaces, and also supplying mechan- 
ical power for the driving of machinery. 

The great problem here demanding a solution is, how 
do the latent forces of gravital attraction become con- 
verted into the sensible heat of the sunbeam ? 

The heat of the sun seems to come down upon the earth 
with the power of a descending weight, accumulating 
strength until it reaches the earth. Its measured velocity 
is 180,000 miles for each second of time. It meets upon 
the earth's surface a return shock of radiant energy that 
serves to multiply its power and carries with it rising mists 
and vapors that give to the winds and the waterfalls their 
sources of power. The law of gravity is here certainly 
the law of intercommunion between sun and earth, and 
as distance is eliminated from the problem it follows that 
sun and earth attract each other directly as mass, i. e., the 



LATENT AND SENSIBLE POWER. 195 

sun attracts the earth with a force measured by the attrac- 
tion of the earth for the sun, as the distance between the 
two bodies is simply zero in the problem. 

As the mutual attractions between these two bodies act 
upon radial lines, and as sun and earth are huge magnets. 
we assume that the poles of the earth are reversed to those 
ot the sun and that the laws of magnetic attraction teach 
us that positiveand negative polar forces flowing oppositely 
between sun and earth establish the bond of union between 
them. If this be so the transfer of energy must be equal 
between these two bodies and this flow must be through 
space at the low level of latent energy. These two oppo- 
sitely moving floods of energy passing under the great law 
of attraction of gravitation pass through more than 90,- 
000,000 miles of radiant matter in eight minutes of time 
and enter the resisting atmosphere of sun and earth, their 
currents thrilling with energy at a high tension of opposite 
polarities to those of the revolving bodies beneath their 
atmospheric envelope and by this means attraction of gravi- 
tation pours a constant flood of light and heat upon both 
sun and planets. According to the theory of latent and 
sensible heat that we have thus imperfectly sketched the 
light and heat of the sun and the planets of the solar sys- 
tem evolved from their resisting atmospheres become 
creative potencies, deriving their vast power from their 
environing space of radiant matter. 

According to this theory there is no solar waste, no 
radiating light and heat from sun to planets, while creative 
power is evolved at the point of time and place in which 
the work is done. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
RADIANT MATTER AND MECHANICAL POWER. 

AS we have to do with occult forces and forms of mat- 
ter, great care is necessary in determining the lines 
of thought that acquaint us with such phenomena as teach 
their existence. False assumptions or false theories will 
hide from us the objects of our search. 

The assumption of our philosophers that -all of matter is 
comprised in three states, has restrained thought and 
retarded discoveries in the unseen realms of space and of 
matter in imponderable forms in space. 

Light, heat, gravitation, mechanical force, electricity, 
magnetism and chemical affinity have therefore been 
regarded as outside of the universe of matter, while space 
has been regarded as vacuity, having no other relation to 
matter than simply affording the somewhere for its place 
and grand velocities. 

Into this unknown realm of cold, deep darkness our 
senses do not lead us; to them it must ever remain as the 
unknown. But it is a realm out of which come all the 
grand facts and forces of the three sensible forms of mat- 
ter. It is also the realm from whence come the wonder- 
ful phenomena of life, soul, spirit, thought, consciousness, 
with all the elements of mind-force, and it is the whither 
of all changes of matter and of all that we know of life. 
If there be an immortality and a realm of pure spiritual 



RADIANT MATTER AND MECHANICAL POWER. 197 

existences, they must be enswathed in matter in its immor- 
tal and radiant state. If there ever were a period when 
the visible worlds of space were unformed, they must have 
had place in space under the conditions of radiant energy 
and radiant matter*; at least, we venture this assumption in 
the line of our inquiry into the behavior of matter in its 
radiant state. Our acquaintance with the radiant state of 
matter must begin with matter in its solid state. The 
human mind can only commence its investigation where 
the great work of material creation ends. Mind in ma- 
terial structures finds its place in the last of the long series 
of the involving forms of matter. 

As complaint has been made to that school of scientific 
thought that treats of creation as a process of evolution, 
we will heed the criticism and regard all creative work in 
matter as a work of involution. The order of work is 
involution, but the forms of matter that come into place 
from the involutionary work of material energy are the 
products of such work and seem evolved therefrom. 

The first step we take from the solid form of matter is 
to matter in its liquid or flowing state, and in the liquid 
state of matter we commence our acquaintance with matter 
taking on the form of currents. In these currents we gain 
our first lessons respecting the mechanical power of matter. 
A dam is constructed across the current of a stream of 
water, resisting its flow; power is accumulated at this 
resisting barrier by the rising of the waters and such accu- 
mulated power is devoted to mechanical work. 

This simple experiment is made useful to the mechanic 
because it furnishes him a power equal to that of many 



198 RADIANT MATTER AND MECHANICAL POWER. 

horses, for driving his machinery, and prepares the way 
for great improvements in the arts of civilization, by 
awakening inquiry respecting the actual sources of power 
in matter. In the adjustment of the machinery erected by 
the side of such a power, developed by the resistance inter- 
posed to the flowing current of a mountain stream, the 
mechanic takes great pains to avoid all possible friction; 
his wheels must be accurately centered and evenly bal- 
anced ; all the journals or bearings must be freely lubri- 
cated, all possible contact ot wheels, belts and pulleys 
with resisting substances must be avoided, because resist- 
ance not only retards motion but developes power from 
the repellent energy of matter that also moves in currents, 
adverse to those of the flowing stream. 

This antagonism of friction to the working power of 
machinery is a factor of power that arises from the fact 
that all forms of sensible power arise from forcible resist- 
ance to flowing currents ; such currents, either moving 
upward from the plane of universal gravitation, or down- 
ward toward such plane. In the flowing stream the dam 
is a resistant to currents flowing downward towards the 
lowest level of rest in the great plane of latent energy. 
In the friction that resists the motion of wheels and pul- 
leys, there is a resistance that awakens currents of energy 
that lift currents of matter above or away from such plane. 

In the experiments of Count- Rumford upon the nature 
of frictional energy, he was enabled to boil water by means 
of a frictional cylinder driven by horse power, in two 
hours and thirty minutes. Now if such a frictional cylinder 
be attached to the machinery that we have supposed erected 



RADIANT 3IATTER AND MECHANICAL POWER. 199 

by the dam of the flowing stream, and water is boiled, 
then a steam engine built by the side of the water-mill 
could be operated by power derived from the water wheel. 
Then again, to this steam engine could be attached one 
of Mr. Edison's dynamo-electrical machines, and currents 
of electricity could be generated from the currents of radi- 
ant matter that flow around the poles of fixed magnets 
and this electrical energy led off in currents to the carbon 
resistants of his electric lamps, which act, in the piling up 
or multiplying of power, as the dam does in the flowing 
stream, and a brilliant display of electrical light is secured. 
But our circle of forces is not complete without we take 
into account the radiant energy of the sun's light and 
heat that lifted the waters of the oceans and lakes into the 
gathering clouds in the form of mist, and giving them to 
the radiant currents within the atmosphere, that are also 
guided by sun energy, deposited them upon the mountains 
and thus feeding the fountains from which the rivers flow. 
It will be noticed by carefully tracing all exhibitions of 
power that may come under our observation that radiant 
matter and radiant energy are necessary conditions of 
power. All forms of power may be interposed between 
the radiant energy of the sunbeam and the radiant energy 
of the glowing flame as seen between the resisting carbons 
of the electric current. Liquids and solids of matter may 
have their place in the series but they cut no figure as pri- 
mary sources of power. Hence, our scientists have been 
led to teach that the sun is the source of all power upon 
the earth. Again, I desire to notice the fact that radiant 
energy is inseparable from radiant forms of matter. There 



200 RADIANT MATTER AND MECHANICAL POWER. 

is need of exercising great caution here in gaining clear con- 
ceptions of radiant forms of material energy. It has been 
a matter of grave inquiry among philosophers whether 
heat is a species of matter or a species of motion. The 
accepted theory is, that it is a species of motion. One 
objection to heat as being a substance, is, that a heated 
body is not sensibly heavier than a cold one. 

Now it should be borne in mind that weight in matter 
is simply local or sensible unbalanced energy. The vast 
bodies of matter constituting the solar system, are in rela- 
tion to each other without weight because they are evenly 
balanced by that universal energy called attraction of 
gravitation, which we have coupled with universal repul- 
sion. It requires sensible displays of power to lift a stone 
from the earth, because it is only lifted against the great 
power of unbalanced material energy. When lifted from 
the earth by the energy of heat, it in falling again to the 
earth gives off or awakens as much heat power as was re • 
quired to lift it. The. great balance of energy is not 
affected by the change of position of the stone by heat- 
power, but when the stone approaches the earth it has 
weight of energy added to its weight of matter, equal to 
the heat energy applied to the lifting of the stone from the 
earth. Thus heat finds a place among the sensible sources 
of power, because of its power to promote local disturb- 
ances between bodies and within bodies of matter. ■ 

If it does not add weight to bodies of matter, it is capa- 
ble of reducing them to a radiant state and thus depriving 
them of all weight. In short, heat is the local unbalanced 
energy of repulsion and always appears in its power over 



RADIANT 3IATTER AND MECHANICAL POWER. 201 

matter as the peer of the local unbalanced energy of attrac- 
tion. In the series of powers that we have grouped 
together by the flowing stream, we find that each class of 
power consists of two equal and oppositely working forces, 
the heat of the sun dissociates water, takes it up as radiant 
matter, holds it above the earth till overcome by attrac- 
tion, and then pours it upon the earth supplying the waste 
of all of earth's flowing springs and rivers of water that are 
diverted to driving the wheels of mechanical power. 

The radiant energy of the sun again appears in the fric- 
tional energy of the heating cylinder and this energy 
contends with the attracting energy of the water convert- 
ing it into the repellent energy of the steam that furnishes 
energy to the moving piston of the engine. Now if the 
whole power of the water-wheel has been used in the heat- 
ing of the water in the frictional cylinder for the supply 
of power to the steam engine there has been simply a 
conversion of power. No work has been done except the 
work of conversion. But by observing the changes in the 
conditions of matter in the conversion of power from that 
of attraction, as in the falling water, and that of repulsion 
as in the steam engine, we find that it changes states, pass- 
ing from the solid or liquid to the radiant, or from the radi- 
ant to the solid or liquid. In its radiant state it is not 
only without weight, but lifts weights; in its solid state it 
is seemingly without power, is called dead or inert, while 
in its liquid state it has only the power of position that is 
transient like the power of a falling weight. 

In this process of the conversion of matter from a solid 
to a radiant state we are compelled to treat the sensible 

14 



202 RADIANT MATTER AND MECHANICAL POWER. 

impression made upon us that we call light and heat, as a 
sympathetic affection between our bodies and the bodies 
that are passing through the process of conversion. 

The radiant matter surrounding the changing body is 
aroused, set in rapid motion, and carries on the work of 
taking in pieces the changing body, atom by atom, and 
converting it into lines of radiant matter. The radiant 
matter that thus does its work upon the changing body 
also works through our bodies, giving to them the sensation 
called heat, and the rapid vibrations of the radiant matter 
surrounding the changing body give to the eye the sensa- 
tion of light. The sensation of light marks the elevated 
plane lo which matter must be lifted in passing through a 
change of states, whether it be from solid to radiant or 
from radiant to solid. The normal temperature of radiant 
and solid matter is always the same, hence a change of 
states only occurs when both are lifted to the elevated 
plane of corresponding affinities, where atomic unions are 
temporarily released from the conservating forces of the 
great law of universal gravitation. 

With these thoughts in mind we shall find no difficulty 
in regarding radiant matter as really distinct from light 
and heat as solid matter is. The radiant lines of the sun- 
beam are real lines of energy independent of the temporary 
illumination that reveals them. It is with this world of 
radiant matter that we must gain an acquaintance as a new 
world of philosophical research. It is really the world in 
which we live, rather than the world of matter in its pon- 
derable forms. Our acquaintance can never be made with 
the great laws of physics in their working harmony so long 



RADIANT MATTER AND MECHANICAL PC-AVER. 



208 



as we remain in ignorance of the all pervading presence of 
radiant matter as the infinite source of material phe- 
nomena. 

When the scientist finds that lines of radiant matter 
constitute the medium through which light comes from 
sun and stars 'and he discovers in such light the lines 
that the metals take on when exposed to high conditions 
of heat, he will then learn that he is discovering more of 
the metallic conditions of environing space than of the 
substances that are in sunlight or starlight. And if we 
might not overburden our theme we would here suggest 
that the vibrations of radiant matter not only give us sen- 
sible light and heat, but also sound. The atmosphere has 
heretofore borne burdens and done work from which it 
will be released so soon as an acquaintance is gained with 
radiant conditions of matter in free space. The gases also 
have had a part to perform that they have but slight capa- 
bilities of performing. 

With these explanatory thoughts we are I trust prepared 
to gain a more perfect acquaintance with the third form 
of power in the series of powers that we have grouped to- 
gether. In this form of power radiant matter appears as 
the chief factor of power supplied and work done. 

Avoiding any detailed account of the machinery used 
for generating powerful electric currents for the purposes 
of the electric light, we only need to say that the power 
of the engine is applied to the work of making and break- 
ing polar attractions between fixed and temporary mag- 
nets, producing rapidly changing magnetic impulses that 
induce magnetic and electrical currents from the immediate 



204 RADIANT MATTER AND MECHANICAL POWER. 

surrounding space, of immense power. The electrical 
currents thus induced from free space are led off to the 
electric burner by conducting wires, the carbon burner 
being a resistant in the electric current, like all other 
resistants to rapidly moving energies, evolves light and 
heat at the break where the local resistant is applied. The 
radiant matter of the magnets and of the conducting wires 
is neither light nor heat, any more than the wheels of the 
cars of a railroad train are, that give off both light and 
heat when motion is resisted by the application of the 
brakes; but the rapid vibrations of radiant matter raised 
to a high temperature in clashing against a resisting 
medium, as rifle balls become heated by clashing against 
a resisting target, report themselves to the eye and to the 
organs of sense as light and heat. As we have before 
indicated, the presence of light and heat mark the highest 
plane of atomic changes in which matter and energy co- 
work in forming living, sensitive organisms. It is the 
high plane of living forms and of thinking, sensitive brain 
power. 

It also marks the plane where positive and negative cur- 
rents of force are broken up into atoms of opposite affini- 
ties preparatory to combination according to the laws of 
magnetic affinity in sustaining life. 

This elevated plane of matter we reach at the border 
line of ponderable matter and consequently at the line of 
the unseen and unknown, and yet at this meeting line of 
radiant matter and sensitive, organic life, we find the van- 
ishing line of the highest working plane of material energy 
that can be attained in developing mechanical power. 



RADIANT MATTER AND MECHANICAL POWER. 205 

The lowest working plane of such energy is that of mag- 
netic attraction in body, and electrical repulsion in space. 
These forces, as we have seen, work at the low temperature 
of inter-stellar space, and we may here add with opposite 
polar forces and fixed centers of rest that command uni- 
versal order and undisturbed harmony. 

The atmosphere represents the belt of working mechan- 
ical forces as they are by Nature limited upon the earth's 
surface. Across this belt the mountains and valleys rise 
and fall as working lines of energy. They must have 
come into place under the repelling and attracting work- 
ing energy of the mechanical couple of opposing forces. 
The lower line of this belt is the sea level of the silent 
magnetic couple of the two forces of magnetic energy that 
have presided over earth-planes of work, preserving the 
center of gravity of the earth with its spherical form and 
equal polar hemispheres and at the same time establishing 
the great equatorial plane of balanced magnetic energy. 
Below this line there is but one couple of forces and they 
work from the rest center of the earth to this line of the 
sea level. The couple of forces stored up within this 
boundary line of magnetic energy, is joined with the sun 
in a couple of power that gives to both sun and earth this 
belt of working forces displaying light and heat and pro- 
moting the formation of all living structures. The sun 
and earth, working over against each other in a magnetic 
couple, keep in play through the environing atmosphere 
of the two bodies the couple of forces — attraction and 
repulsion — that are necessary to all working mechanical 
powers. These two forces as we have stated work through 



203 RADIANT MATTER AND MECHANICAL POWER. 

the resisting atmosphere as resistants, developing power 
simultaneously upon earth and sun. 

Hence, we are enabled to account for the counter flow 
of streams of water from the sea level to the tops of the 
mountains, against an atmospheric pressure of fifteen 
pounds to the square inch. In this work radiant matter 
lifts in the lines of the sunbeam to the tops of the hills and 
mountains with a power equal to that of all the flowing 
waters in their descent to the sea. Let it be distinctly 
noted and carefully fixed in the mind that it is not the 
atmosphere that does this work, but radiant lines of mate- 
rial energy working through the atmosphere. These lines 
of radiant matter carry heat, moisture, light and sound 
through the atmosphere, while it is constantly supplying 
the brake of its sluggish. compound. 

Even the motions of the atmosphere in direct lines of 
motion with its often fearful velocities, are directed by the 
radiant lines of energy that work through it from magnetic 
sources of power above and beneath it. 

Our books of philosophy teach us that evaporation goes 
on in vacuum as freely as under the pressure of the atmos- 
phere, and at the same time the atmosphere wrenches from 
the cold, dark level of universal energy, by its resistance, 
all of sensible power that appears in this belt of working 
powers that we have endeavored to visualize. 

In the process of world formation, this belt that we have 
designated as some twelve thousand feet in depth around 
the earth, has been pressed constantly outward as the 
work of earth formation has gone forward, step by step in 
the progress of the ages, covering from the beginning of 



RADIANT MATTER AND MECHANICAL POWER. 207 

living structures according to the testimony of their rocky 
sepulcher, a distance of more than twenty miles. Within 
this belt as the workshop of radiant, creative forces, there 
is discovered the true history of creation. It is in vain, 
and out of the line of our present work, to attempt to com- 
pute the periods of time consumed in this work, but this 
we know, that ages have made no haste in their creative 
work, and hence twenty miles in thickness of stratified 
rock over the great continents of the earth must assure us 
of a time past that thought cannot measure. And the 
matter out of which these rocky structures were built, 
from whence did it come, if not from the radiant material 
energy that guides the planets in their lines of motion ? 



CHAPTER XIX 
FROM WHENCE ROCKS. 

THE line of our work has led us into an acquaintance 
with currents of matter flowing under the power of 
the grand energy of attraction toward the low sea level of 
ocean formation. Again, we have seen that currents of 
radiant matter gather a constant tribute from the great 
fountains of lakes and oceans, and lift the water in atomic 
or misty forms through the atmosphere above the conti- 
nents with their lofty mountains and thus pouring out 
from cloudy chariots an abundant supply of rain drops, 
both for replenishing the fountains and refreshing all 
forms of life upon the earth. Under the working circles 
of these radiant lines of matter every species of life took 
<?n from some whence material bodily form — the growing 
rocks, even, took on the form of solids from low condi- 
tions of life. "The great pyramids of Egypt," we are 
told, "are formed of stones which owe their origin to the 
chalk shells of minute animals. The stones of which nearly 
the whole city of Paris is built consist of the shells of ani- 
mals', of which two hundred millions are computed in a 
cubic foot." The limestone of the Trenton period was 
evidently an involution of matter from moluscan life. 
Geology teaches that the beds of Trenton limestone 
abound in fossils, some of them being literally made up of 
shells, trilobites and corals, while the surfaces of the 



FROM WHENCE ROCKS. 209 

slaty layers are frequently thickly strewn with the delicate 
forms of graptolites, etc. In Pennsylvania the formation 
of this limestone is 2,000 feet in thickness. 

Again, the carboniferous age is principally character- 
ized by the accumulation of vast deposits of vegetable 
matter which become converted into the coal of com- 
merce. From facts like these we gain testimony that can 
not be questioned, that all the solid structures of the earth 
have been slowly built up under the play of the same radi- 
ant forms of energy that now characterize the radiant belt 
of mechanically working forces, so that the question 
remains unanswered respecting the whence of these vast 
deposits of matter. Radiant matter and animal and veg- 
etable life have played an important part as builders, but 
from whence come the- materials with which they build ? 
Nebulous matter here cuts no figure, star-dust and cora- 
etary matter give no evidence now of furnishing material 
for the building up of any forms of life. The vast sup- 
plies of carbon of the carboniferous age, and, indeed, for 
the building of the vegetable and animal structures of our 
own age, must come from some unmeasured sources either 
within or above this belt of earth formation. The 
Archaean age of the earth surely could contribute nothing 
from its locked up stores of matter towards building the 
structures of the ages above it. 

If it be answered that the sun furnished these supplies 
from the body of the sun, we have only to reply that the 
law of gravity teaches that such building has been done by 
attraction and atomic affinities, and by the same agencies 
must matter be built upon the body of the sun, and the 



210 FROM WHENCE ROCKS. 

distinctive individuality of the two bodies forbids the 
assumption even, of such a transference of matter. 

The answer then is, and the only possible answer, that, 
from the same currents of radiant matter that reveal energy 
by resistance, affording light and heat, come also the ele- 
mentary atoms of all forms of matter. We have endeav- 
ored to magnify the thought that back of all aggregative 
matter and through all space there is a system of attract- 
ing and repelling currents that constitute all mechanical 
power, and even all sensible displays of power. If we 
read our illustrations of mechanical power upward from 
that of the water wheel to the steam engine and finally to 
the electro-dynamic generator of electrical currents, we 
find that the energy back of each couple of power is an 
invisible agency of the radiant matter of attraction and 
repulsion. It is repulsion in the lifting work of the sun- 
beam ; it is attraction in the flowing currents of the river. 
It is repulsion in the frictional cylinder transferred from 
the power of the water wheel to the power of the heated 
water in the boiler of the engine. It is attraction in the 
magnets of the electrical generator that is broken by the 
stronger power of repulsion of the engine. It is attraction 
that leads the electrical currents through the conducting 
wires; it is repulsion revealed by the resistance of the carbon 
burner of the electric lamp in the electric light. In this 
entire series of counter working forces we can but discover 
the presence of a world of power, constant, exhaustless and 
eternal in the environment of all forms of matter. Ques- 
tion this entire problem of the forces of matter as we may, 
but one answer is given respecting the whence of material 



FROM WHENCE ROCKS. 211 

energy and that answer is, that it is from the vast sea of 
radiant energy surrounding bodies of matter in space. 

Now, if we can establish the relation between matter 
and energy in space that exists between matter and energy 
under the ponderable forms of matter, then we can gain 
conceptions of radiant matter filling all of space, co-exist- 
ent and co-eternal therewith. 

With our old ideas of space as a vacuum and of matter 
as a chance product of chaos and all of creative energy as 
held in reserve or directed according to the decisions of a 
divine mind, and held to creative work under the guidance 
of a divine will, it is necessary that we make haste slowly 
in furnishing proof that primal forces and primal forms of 
matter co-exist in space, endowing it with a materiality as 
real and as complete in their lines of motion and methods 
of systematic order, as that of the great globes of matter 
that scientists have studied as presenting the entire prob- 
lem of creation. 

The conception, for some cause, has been gained that 
force or energy is possible, separate from matter; hence the 
imponderable forces, such as light, heat, electricity, 
magnetism, chemical affinity and life are regarded as non- 
material, having no representative form in matter, and 
consequently exercise their sovereignty outside of, and 
independent of material conditions. 

By means of such conception we have had but half of 
the problem of creation set before us and consequently no 
satisfactory solution could be obtained. 

Physicists have studied the laws of matter under the 
sensible forms of matter as they have come into place under 



212 FROM WHENCE ROCKS. 

the commanding presence of the great law of attraction; 
they have also observed their combustion under the work- 
ing presence of the great law of repulsion, and have seen 
them transformed into a condition of glowing radiance, 
and at this point they have lost the conception of a pre- 
served materiality. 

They find an energy in matter revealing its presence 
under the two forms of attraction and repulsion ; from 
either form mechanical power may be secured of vast im- 
portance in promoting the industries of civil life. In the 
belt of the mechanical forces these two forms of power 
balance each other, and under their working presence the 
conditions of matter conform to the form of energy doing 
work. Below this working belt the one commanding 
energy of attraction predominates and matter is held 
under the latent energy of attraction in stable forms; 
above this belt of the working forces the energy of repul- 
sion predominates and matter must either be annihilated 
or take on the peculiar forms of radiant matter under the 
energy of repulsion. 

Again, it appears that within this working belt of the 
mechanical forms of force, that all power results from dis- 
turbance of the natural working conditions of material 
energy. We condition the displays of force by interpos- 
ing resistants to the performance of normal work. By 
this means we divert power, or draw it off from the great 
flowing currents of universal energy. The grand energy of 
attraction of universal gravitation drives the water wheel, 
while the grand energy of atomic repulsion that is revealed 
in the radiance of the sunbeam, drives our steam engines. 



FROM WHENCE ROCKS. 213 

In the earth there is stored up, as in a vast reservoir, 
the power of attraction, The measure of this power is, 
according to the mathematical statement of the law of uni- 
versal gravitation, simply the measure of the earth's mass. 
The power of attraction stored up in the sun and all the 
planetary bodies, including satellites, of the solar system, 
is as the measure of the mass of their several bodies. 

"Directly as mass and inversely as the squares of dis- 
tance from their several centers," these bodies act upon 
each other in the great social system of sun and planets. 

Now, as the sun in mass far exceeds all of the planetary 
bodies in the aggregate of their measure, it follows that 
the planets working under this power of attraction alone, 
instead of taking up orbital paths of motion around the 
sun, would be drawn on radial lines towards the sun's cen- 
ter. Hence, we here call attention to the fact that all 
forms of matter taking up paths of motion in straight lines 
are moved under the power of attraction, while those mov- 
ing on orbital lines move under the joint action of attrac- 
tion and repulsion. With two bodies of matter of unequal 
size in a field of mutual attraction and at the same time 
hypothetically at rest, an initial impulse of motion equal 
to the power of attraction of the smaller body being im- 
parted to it, would necessarily take up a curvilinear motion 
except the impulse was directly toward the center of the 
larger body or in direct opposition to such center. The 
path of a cannon ball upon the surface of the earth dis- 
charged on different lines of elevation, will be similar to 
the path of such a body of matter set in motion in free 
space, on like lines of impulse. 



214 FROM WHENCE ROCKS. 

Again, if such impulse is imparted to the so-called iner- 
tia of the body, in a line of impulse above the line of a 
tangent to a circle or at an obtuse angle to the radial line 
joining the center of the two bodies, the attraction of the 
larger body would act as a constant retardation of motion, 
and consequently a constantly increased deflection of 
motion from the line of impulse towards the larger body, 
while each point of deflection gained would be increased 
by the hypothetical inertia of the body until the line of 
motion would become the radial line of attraction towards 
the center of the larger body. 



CHAPTER XX. 

FORM AND MOTION OF PLANETS DETERMINE 
THEIR ORIGIN. 

BUT our problem teaches that one-half of the power 
causing the earth's motion around the sun is the 
power of attraction, a power that is inherent in matter. 
Again, it teaches that the hypothetical primary impulse 
imparted to the earth's mass at creation upon the line of a 
tangent to its orbit is at once changed to a broken line of 
motion, and by the material energy of attraction is con- 
strained to act at every point of impulse at right angles to 
a radial line joining the center of the earth with the center 
of the sun. 

But not only does the straight line of primary impulse 
become broken by material energy, but the hypothetical 
inertia of matter, or its "properly of passiveness," is at 
once advanced to the dignity of a repellent energy of equal 
strength to the universal energy of attraction of gravitation 
while, The sweep of the great circular paths of the 
planets around the sun reveal a constant energy of re- 
pulsion equal to the sun's energy of attraction. 

These two forces of material energy deny the passivity 
of matter, and proclaim the law of inertia as taught by 
our scientists, a myth. There are from some whence lines 
of orbital energy urging the planets along their circular 
paths of motion in space equal to the radial lines of at- 



216 FORM AND MOTION OF PLANETS. 

tracting energy between sun and planets. As we find 
attraction and repulsion upon the earth equal forces, both 
in the laboratory of the scientist and in the power machines 
of the mechanic, so we assume that the machinery of the 
solar system works out its grand results, subject to the har- 
monious co-working energy of these two universal forces 
of magnetic attraction and electrical repulsion. 

Now we find no difficulty in conceiving of all the plan- 
etary bodies of space as yielding perfect and unchanging 
obedience to occult forces. These forces establish for the 
solar system a great equatorial plane of rest in which the 
centers of the planets describe their orbital line of motion 
around the sun ; they also fix the poles of axial motion of 
all the planets at right angles to such equatorial plane. 
Again, we can conceive of these occult forces working 
through all of matter that is gathered in planetary form, 
and even saturating such planetary bodies with occult 
energy as the steel of the magnet is saturated with such 
forces. Once more we can conceive of these occult forces 
weaving a network of force currents between planetary 
bodies, separated from each other by millions of miles. 
In fact we recognize the radiant presence of such forces in 
the pathway of each rising and setting sun, and hence we 
ask, may we not conceive of all of space traversed with 
great floods of radiant matter "flowing with immense power 
in systematic order and under as perfect guidance as the 
streams of water or the currents of the wind upon the face 
of the earth ? We have already seen that the radiant mat- 
ter revealed in the sunbeam is the source of all power upon 
the earth, and we know that the radiant lines of the elec- 



FORM AND MOTION OF PLANETS. 217 

trical current carry with them a power that no ingenuity of 
man can measure; and if we allow thought to take in the 
declaration of Revelation that "In the beginning God cre- 
ated the heavens and the earth," we can only conceive of 
the work of creation wrought out by the agency of occult 
lines of radiant matter touched by the intellectual impulse 
of an infinite will power. It becomes necessary that we 
should endeavor to fix lines of thought in our minds 
respecting matter in space, because, we have been accus- 
tomed to limit our conceptions of matter to the testimony 
of the senses, and hence have been perplexed with the 
problem of world creation out of nothing, and of the guid- 
ing the planets in their orbits by the force of attraction 
between bodies of matter on the one hand, and passivity of 
matter and original divine impulse on the other. How 
universal attraction of gravitation could find a balance in 
universal passivity of matter, and how divine impulse could 
impart orbital velocity to planetary bodies by a spiritual 
agency, equal to the attraction of gravitation between bod 
ies of matter, giving them a compound energy of half 
spirit and half matter, securing a velocity of thirty miles 
in a second of time, we have found no teacher of science 
ready to tell us ; and still this class of teaching satisfies 
many minds and will restrain such minds from attempting 
to follow the simple lines of thought that our subject 
reveals. If we pause here and gather up the lines of 
thought that we have let drop here and there in our nec- 
essarily broken and irregular steps of progress toward an 
intellectual acquaintance with the unseen primary forces 
and forms of matter in its radiant state, we may note 
15 



218 FORM AND MOTION OF PLANETS. 

i. That all imponderable forms of matter take on the 
form of currents in free space. 

2. That these currents move with immense velocity 
constituting great floods of power always flowing towards 
attracting centers of matter on radial lines, or around such 
centers on orbital lines, so long as such lines of motion are 
unbroken, or the normal state of the forces in relation to 
each other, remains undisturbed. 

3. That the great floods that obey gravital attractions 
and flow upon radial lines constituting universal attraction 
of gravitation are laden with virgin elements of matter that 
are poured in constant floods upon the surfaces of all bodies 
of matter and through the circulatory currents that build 
such bodies into varied organic structures. These floods 
are the floods of energy and material lines of force revealed 
in the magnet and that cause all forms of matter to pre- 
serve a sensitive union to universal energy and universal 
primary conditions of matter that constitute the first 
things of creation. 

4. The great floods of virgin matter and energy that 
flow in orbital currents around the sun and planetary 
bodies, and at right angles to the radial floods above 
noticed, are floods of electrical power that constitute the 
repellent force of matter in space that balances the stored 
up attractions of matter in planetaty forms, and that give 
velocity and guidance to the planets in their orbits around 
the sun. The sun and planets are vast magnets revolv- 
ing in a sea of electro-magnetic forces. The lines of 
force that constitute the power of the magnet, reveal their 
organic unity and completeness in a constantly preserved 



FORM AND MOTION OF PLANETS. 219 

balance between axial magnetic currents of energy and 
orbital electrical currents of energy. 

The currents of electricity and magnetism always reveal 
in their working harmony both duality and unity. They 
are as inseparable from each other as positive and negative 
currents of electricity are, or as attraction and repulsion 
are from the force currents of the magnet, and yet they 
perform their work by paths of motion crossing each other 
at right angles as the radial lines and the latitudinal lines 
of planetary bodies intersect at every conceivable point of 
contact. 

This proposition, that needs no proof, marks a clear and 
well defined distinction between electricity and magnetism, 
that exists between them as equal material sovereignties 
united in the one universal sovereignty of force that pre- 
sides over matter in all of its creative changes and sublime 
velocities. Under .tire joint sovereignty of these two cor- 
relate forces of matter, magnetism maintains the sover- 
eignty of attraction over matter in body, while electricity 
maintains the sovereignty of repulsion over matter in 
space. The lines of magnetic strength work on the radial 
lines of attraction while the lines of electrical energy work 
upon orbital lines of repulsion. 

This gives us two equal material sovereignties of univer- 
sal power, joining together the two kingdoms of the heav- 
ens and the earth — of matter in body and matter in space, 
in an intersphering unity of harmoniously working forces 
that can suffer no disturbance equal to the dust of the bal- 
ance. 

The ultimates of thought here reached are, atomic or 



220 FORM AND MOTION OF PLANETS. 

molecular individuality working together giving organic 
unity and universal harmony. 

The interchanging local disturbances between attraction 
and repulsion in the changing states of matter upon the 
surfaces of planetary bodies produce no disturbance of 
the sovereign balance of forces; indeed it is the co-work- 
ing of these forces that reveals to us all of our knowledge 
of creative work. Under these forces we acquaint our- 
selves with the atom and the world of atoms, alike mar- 
vels of obedience to one grand sovereignty of order in the 
evolution of all forms of being and all orders of worlds. 

With these conceptions of electrical and magnetic work- 
ing lines of energy as they are revealed in the magnet we 
have only to think of the sun and planets held in charge 
of these two correlate forces to give to our minds clear 
conceptions of the behavior of radiant matter in space. 

The sun and planets are vast magnets because they are 
held in charge of electro-magnetic forces. The forces are 
not from these bodies but these bodies are from the forces. 
The primary state of matter is the radiant state, and the 
building of matter into body is under the working lines of 
order that these forces take on when in charge of matter 
under organic affinities. Magnetic lines of force fix centers 
and build around such centers, drawing matter on lines of 
radial energy equally from surrounding radiant matter in 
space, consequently they take on globular form and become 
growing worlds, deriving their aggregating power and in- 
crease of form from the radiant sea of matter in which 
they are fixed in their axial and orbital lines of motion 
by electro-magnetic forces constituting them working 



FORM AND MOTION OF PLANETS. 221 

electro-magnets. As solid matter takes on form so does 
radiant matter take on normal lines of motion around it, 
as around an electro-magnet so that as each magnet has a 
field of magnetic influence so does each planetary body 
establish its magnetic field of working forces. And such 
magnetic field conforms to the law of attraction of gravi- 
tation, viz., directly as mass and inversely as the squares 
of distance. 

We desire to extend thought into and across the field of 
sensible measures that are mapped out by the material 
force currents of sun and planets as vast magnets. It is 
the firm conviction of my own mind that the sun's field 
of gravital influence is as truly matter as his solid organic 
structure, and that such matter is in ceaseless activity, 
flowing in currents of sovereign energy and in exact lines 
of order, and harmony, constituting the creating, govern- 
ing, changing and revolving forces that appear in the more 
tangible forms of matter. Without the sensible presence 
of these floods of radiant lines of matter that come to us 
in the light of the sun, that flow in currents of strength 
through our bodies as they keep in play the inflowing and 
outflowing floods of atomic elements of matter that are 
laden with incoming supplies of daily life, and the outgo- 
ing wastes attendant upon Nature's methods of work, our 
bodily forms would be wholly unfit for the dwelling place 
of our spirits. Our hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, 
feeling that connect us with the world of matter are en- 
tirely dependent upon this radiant form of matter that 
constitutes the social tie that pervades all forms of life and 
all ranks and orders of Nature's complete work. 



222 FORM AND MOTION OF PLANETS. 

The solar system is no exception to the social system of 
family ties that is characteristic of creative work in the 
various ranks of life upon the earth. 

The sun and planets constitute a family of worlds bound 
together by mutual lines of sensitive intercourse and de- 
pendent relationship. So sensitive is this relation between 
the sun and the earth, that the magnetic needle notes the 
progress of the sun in his daily circuit from rising to set- 
ting, by a constant daily variation through an angle of 
ten or fifteen minutes, moving in one direction during the 
early part of the day, and back again during the latter 
part of the day with the motion reversed in the southern 
hemisphere. 

This variation of the needle must arise from the varia- 
tion of the magnetic currents of the earth, influenced by 
the changing magnetic currents of the sun. 

The term "magnetic field" was devised by Faraday and 
is defined as any space at every point of which exists a fine 
magnetic force, while a line of magnetic force is a line 
drawn through a magnetic field in the direction of the 
force at each point through which it passes. 

Before the time of Faraday natural philosophers were 
satisfied with the mere statement that magnets acted at a 
distance, and followed generally the same law as ruled in 
the action of gravitation throughout the celestial spaces, 
that is to say, that the intensity of the magnetic action de- 
creased inversely as the squares of the distance from the 
center of the magnet; but Faraday, "in his mind's eye," 
says Prof. Maxwell, "saw lines of force traversing all space 
where the mathematicians saw centers of force attracting 



FORM AND MOTION OF PLANETS. 223 

at a distance; Faraday saw a medium when they saw noth- 
ing but distance; Faraday sought the seat of the phenom- 
ena in real actions going on in the medium, they were 
satisfied that they had found it in a power of action at a 
distance impressed on the electric fluids." We may here 
add that Faraday was a student of radiant forces, while the 
mathematicians only conceived of quantitive measures. 

The foregoing reference to the conceptions of Faraday 
by Alfred M. Mayer in the Scientific American of October 
4, 1879, w iN a id us in gaining a correct conception of the 
systematic order that radiant matter takes on in its mas- 
terly guidance of the planetary systems of worlds in space. 
"All material phenomena come into our field of vision as 
effects produced by an unseen potency. This potency has 
taken on material form in the mind of Faraday and con- 
sists of a universal presence surrounding bodies of matter 
in space weaving around them lines of force of infinite 
fineness, equal to the measure of the elementary atoms of 
which such bodies have been formed." Thus it is no mys- 
tery that the magnetic field of linear forces induced by the 
magnetic strength of atoms in body should be adequate to 
the complete upholding and guidance of any body in 
space, no matter how great may be its magnitude; while 
this gives us an enlarged vision of the matter actually 
bound to the gravital center of every planetary body; for 
we must regard the magnetic field of radiant matter sur- 
rounding the body as truly a part of its complete structure 
as are the solids, liquids and gases of its sensible form. 

Again, we cannot complete our vision of radiant matter 
surrounding each planetary body, unless we observe care- 



224 FORM AND MOTION OF PLANETS. 

fully the self-determining order assumed by the two grand 
correlating floods of radiant lines that fix axial position and 
give orbital motion alike to all bodies of matter in space. 
Magnetic attraction drawing upon radial lines, along 
which the rays of light pass from body to body and which 
unite the bodies of the solar system in one vast magnetic 
field, is complemented by electrical repulsion, that, as we 
have already noticed, attracts the planets in their orbital 
paths across such radial lines with a strength equal to the 
strength of magnetic or gravital attraction stored up in the 
solid nucleus of the planetary body. The system of elec- 
trical and magnetic currents of the electro-magnet reveals 
the systematic order with which these currents preside 
over all organic unions of elements into sensible forms, 
and by which all working forces in Nature secure their 
unfailing power. The power of the magnetic lines of the 
floods of light passing between the earth and sun coupled 
with the cross floods of electrical currents that establish 
orbital paths of planetary revolution, and of the destruc- 
tive cyclone that sweeps along over the earth, uprooting 
trees and lifting the staunchest structures from their foun- 
dations, alike disclose the same combination of force-cur- 
rents that give strength to the magnet. The source of this 
elementary power is as unfailing as space is immeasurable. 
That we have done but little more than attempt to lead 
scientific thought over a field already existing, though in a 
shadowy form in scientific minds, we add an extract from 
Prof. Tyndall. Referring to the force currents of the 
magnet he says, "The aspect of these curves so fascinated 
Faraday that the greater portion of his intellectual life 



FORM AND MOTION OF PLANETS. 225 

was devoted to pondering over them. He invested the 
space through which they run with a kind of materiality, 
and the probability is, that the progress of science by 
connecting the phenomena of magnetism with the lumin- 
iferous ether will prove these 'lines of force,' as Faraday 
loved to call the magnetic curves to represent a condition 
of this substratum of all radiant action." 

"The condition of the substratum of all radiant action" 
is positively fixed in the metallic lines of magnetic phenom- 
ena, so the substratum of all organisms of matter whether 
of a revolving world or a grain of mustard seed is fixed by 
the same metallic lines of energy. The solid form of the 
magnet and the radiant form of its field of forces are alike 
parts of a single unity of organic power. It is in fact in 
the organism of the radiant portion of the magnet that its 
power resides. 

The radiant field of the magnet is translated into the 
power of the magnet, as the sun's field of light is translated 
upon the earth into the mechanical forces that are result- 
ants of sun energy. It is therefore scarcely possible to 
evade the conviction of the materiality of all forms of radi- 
ant energy. The entire line of our work leads us to the 
recognition of the presence of matter with all forms of ma- 
terial force. As the material world could not be created 
out of nothing, so material force can not display its power 
within or across an utter void. A force without matter is 
as unthinkable as the evolution of matter from a perfect 
vacuity. We can not think of a subjective without an ob- 
jective, neither can we think of force acting where there 
is no object to translate the force. 



CHAPTER XXI. 
LIFE AND RADIANT MATTER. 

THE position that light occupies in the process of ev- 
olutionary or creative work is central and primary. 
The story of Moses respecting the creation teaches that 
light was the first agency called into place by the creator. 
Science also teaches that the sun through the agency of 
light a'nd heat is the source of all power and the cause of 
all forms of life upon the earth. 

We have endeavored to magnify the thought that radiant 
energy and radiant matter are inseparable from each other, 
we even go a step further and affirm that radiant matter 
and energy were primal to all of matter in organic forms. 
Immortal matter and energy as revealed in the lines of 
light are the "something" out of which and by which the 
worlds have been built, and the same lines of light con- 
tinue to carry forward their immortal work in the unfolding 
of life and form, that are to us the conditions of the grand 
problem of creation. The radiance of the light is simply 
a condition of radiant matter reporting its working pres- 
ence to our senses. It is a vibration, an impulse that 
touches the organs of sense and passes with the velocity of" 
thought. By this passing radiance we gain a glimpse of 
the lines of force that are carrying forward the constant 
work of creation, or of generation and reproduction which 



LIFE AND RADIANT MATTER. 227 

are synonymous with creation. Under the hand of the 
experimenter a ray of light gives light, heat and chemical 
affinity. It also obeys the laws of matter, suffering attrac- 
tion, repulsion, absorption, reflection, etc.. and while 
obeying the laws of matter it envelopes all forms of matter 
with its radiance and its lines of energy afford the social 
tie that binds all forms of matter and ail conditions of life 
into a unity of being. It also gives identity of being and 
preserves such identity in the midst of the widest diversity. 
Each animal, plant, or germ of life receives its needed 
supply of energy and atoms from the light to be enfolded 
into its evolving life form in exact measures, no more and 
no less than the being or object craves. 

These all wait upon the light and receive their sustenance 
in due season. The statement of the law of gravitation 
will apply to the distribution of the elements of light. 
Each object attracts and is attracted by every other object 
within its field of influence, or within its magnetic field. 
It is claimed by some of our best scientists that light has 
both a forward and a backward motion. We would trans- 
late this seeming motion of light into that of magnetic 
impulse and regard each form of matter possessed by a 
polarizing energy and consequently constantly wrought 
upon by polarizing currents. These currents in the living 
forms of matter establish the magnetic centers of the liv- 
ing organisms, and these become life centers and all of the 
circulatory flow of fluids that nourish and stimulate the 
varied functions of life in the living body are kept in con- 
stant play by the self working power of electro-magnetic 
currents. 



228 LIFE AND RADIANT MATTER. 

The machinery of the living organism of matter is no 
exception to machinery prepared by human hands, in 
requiring a power constantly applied to produce constant 
work. 

The pitcher at the fountain and the wheel at the cistern 
derive their command over life from the self-adjusting 
power of attraction and repulsion that waits upon every 
polarized form of matter. The pulsating currents of the 
hair-like stings of the nettle that Prof. Huxley has seized 
upon as an interpreter of microscopic life, as truly as the 
circulation of the blood in the animal economy, derive 
their power from this one universal form and source 
of power. Protoplasm derives its power to take on new 
formations and multiply its elementary organism into the 
more complex from this dual power of polarization. I am 
aware of the fact that many scientific minds have decided 
against the claims we here make for this "material basis of 
life" but we make our statements, leaving them with the 
inquiry, if not these, what ? 



CHAPTER XXII. 
EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 

ANOTHER condition of the problem is, atoms of 
matter conditioning sovereign material energy ; for 
diversity of atoms that are elementary to diversities of 
substances must have inhered in the atoms and not in the 
supreme harmonic energy. In crystallization the atoms 
always determine the crystalline forms, with mathematical 
accuracy. 

Again, the above conditions give the thought of space 
as illimitable, matter as immeasureable and imponderable, 
and material energy as compassing all with its unifying 
sovereignty of power, endowed from each atom with an 
individuality of unit strength, thus constituting it a factor 
in the great problem of universal creative work. The atoms, 
as factors, recognize the necessity of their unification into 
the elementary substances of the chemist that have been 
detected and numbered as the sixty-four elementary sub- 
stances of creation that have given phenomenal forms of 
matter. 

The division of matter into substances gives us further 
the idea of attracting and repellent conditions of universal 
energy in both binding together and dividing the element- 
ary substances into lines of material unity. In such bind- 
ing of atoms, likes are bound to likes, and also separated 



230 EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 

from unlikes by a sovereign energy of attraction and repul- 
sion that characterizes the behavior of elementary currents 
of matter in space. 

The law of electrical currents, which we venture to re- 
gard as elementary currents of matter, is found by experi- 
ment to be, " That currents moving in the same direction 
attract, while those moving in opposite directions repel 
each other." Electrical currents of matter interflow, pos- 
itive and negative flowing in opposite directions and 
exactly complementing each other. Again, atoms bound 
together in linear order, demand polar contacts of the 
atoms, as in the joining of magnet to magnet at their poles. 
Such joining fulfills the conditions of electric currents, in 
giving completed circuits, while the positive and negative 
currents flowing in opposite directions of equal couples of 
strength and velocity, obeserve their separate identity, 
giving the first complete equation of elementary matter 
and elementary energy, prior to, and separate from, the 
building of atoms into organic world -forms. 

This elementary combination of atoms and energy gives 
us a clear conception of matter and material energy con- 
stituting a duality of both energy and substance counter- 
flowing in space in perfect order and undisturbed harmony. 
In this combination of elements into linear order of sub- 
stances, we have visualized that great deep of darkness out 
of which, and by which the worlds were made. The tem- 
perature and the darkness of now stellar space with all its 
pervading lines of electrical energy are the same as at the 
beginning. Even now, the work of creation goes forward 
under the guiding touch of electrical affinities, drawing 



EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 281 

both the strength and the substance of organic structures 
from radiant matter in charge of electrical currents ; and 
again, when organic structures are consumed by oxidation 
or combustion, they pass again into electrical currents in 
space. Creation is from the dark and cold embrace of the 
swiftly moving currents of the great deep of space to which 
there must be a return of elements when there is a com- 
plete disintegration of creation's work. 

This leads us to the contemplation of the second prob- 
lem set before us in the changes of matter from its occult, 
elementary, radiant state, to its three sensible and working 
states, viz., gaseous, liquid and solid. 

The work of involution of diverse atoms from the dis- 
tinct substances of linear currents into the complex unions 
of substances now appearing in organic forms of matter, 
reveals a new law of atomic control. 

In space likes are bound to likes by polar contacts con- 
stituting lines or currents of matter. In all organic or 
molecular structures, unlikes are bound together by lateral 
bindings or attractions, as magnets are bound together, side 
by side, by reversal of poles. By this process of binding, 
the joining of two oppositely charged atoms produces a 
molecule of double magnetic strength to that of the sep- 
arate atoms. This molecule of enhanced power seeks a 
union with another of opposite elective affinity, and an- 
other step is taken in the work of systematic aggregation. 
At each step in the process a new form of matter comes 
into place with new powers and new possibilities of crea- 
tive work. It is in this order that the entire complex 
work of creation is carried forward under the systematic 



232 EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 

harmony of inherent affinities and exterior balancing re- 
pulsions; the former we call magnetization, the latter 
electrization. In pursuing this line of thought we come to 
the boundary line between electricity and magnetism as 
observed in their united sovereignty over matter. It is 
broken currents of electricity that give us elementary 
atoms as magnets, while the restoration of such atoms to 
currents gives us electricity. In space positive and nega- 
tive currents balance all velocities by their equal and 
oppositely flowing lines of matter. These counter floods 
of energy interflow, equals in strength but diverse in sub- 
stance. These constitute the elementary parental unity 
that everywhere appears as generative affinities in organic 
being and affinity. In body, magnetic affinities gather 
matter into new substances and establishing a new order 
of free currents that are held under the control of the 
bodies thus formed. Hence we find magnetic currents re- 
veal their strength in all cases on radial lines leading to and 
from the gravital center of the organized body. Newton's 
discovery of the great law of attraction of gravitation, was 
a discovery of the law of magnetic currents in their rela- 
tion to the bodies of matter that have been built up under 
the working energy of magnetic or elective affinities. 

From the mathematical demonstration confirming this 
discovery we learn that bodies attract bodies directly as 
mass, i. e., they attract in organic forms as they attracted 
in their dissociate atoms. There is not masked in the 
created form the strength of a single atom, but such 
strength is joined with its associate atoms in long working 
lines of attraction, drawing from the great dark depths of 



EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 238 

space elements of virgin matter to increase the body and 
enhance the strength of the organism into which they are 
socially bound. Electricity in space may thus be converted 
into magnetism in bodies, and magnetism in bodies by 
dissociation may be converted into electricity in space. 
Conservation of force and conservation of atoms in all 
changes of matter scientific minds have already reached 
by way of experiment, and we here learn that the adjusted 
balance between electricity and magnetism gives us the 
dividing line between matter and energy in body and 
matter and energy in space. 

In body magnetic currents are the commanding unity 
of creative energy that hold all the working forces of both 
electricity and magnetism to a perfect order of grouping 
around fixed centers of aggregation. By just so much as 
the work of organic structures is carried forward under the 
work of magnetic affinities, by just so much is electrical 
atomic energy in orbital currents bound in completed cir- 
cuits to sweep around such centers with a repellent and 
balancing energy equal to the working magnetic strength 
of the gravital centers around which they flow. Here is 
revealed a general law that is never violated or changed in 
the complex work of the multiplied developments of Na- 
ture's building. 

The initial centers of magnetic attraction are always 
foundation points at which creative work begins, and the 
first group of atoms gathered around such centers are the 
foundation stones upon which all creative structures are 
built. Toward such centers the lines of magnetic attrac- 
tion always move, laden with virgin atoms of matter as 

16 



23 J: EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 

the materials of building; from such atoms selection and 
rejection, under the law of magnetic affinities, assorts the 
atoms and carries them to their place in the growing 
structures. 

By following out this line of thought we reach the be- 
ginnings of creation and find them the beginnings of sub- 
stance, and also the beginnings of material energy; and 
we learn that from them have come all the grand results 
of creation's work. 

The worker and the works thus stand revealed to human 
thought as compassing the entire field of infinites and 
holding in their grasp all of the possibilities of evolving 
world structures and of life forms. All the radiant gar- 
ments of creation in the diverse colors that now appear to 
human vision are woven from the same garments of im- 
mortality thai wrapped themselves around the initial cen- 
ters of world creations. 

As worlds were created, so worlds are now carrying for- 
ward the work of their unfinished structures. 

What we now call growth was at the beginning Nature's 
work of creation, and could we unfold the presence of the 
occult forces that secure the growth of a blade of grass or 
of the formation of the tiniest seed with its inwrapt life 
germ, we should be brought face to face with the same 
forces and the same order of work that appeared at the 
beginning. 

The powers and the wisdom of creation are now revealed 
in every evolving form of life, and infinity in its broadest 
and fullest conception touches each growing seed as it at 
the beginning touched each growing world center. 



EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 235 

We find the deepest mystery of life in the constantly re- 
volving circle of its periodic changes of growth and decay 
— of life and death — of seed-beginning and seed-producing, 
as opposite points in the circle of life, with the growing 
and dying life-form intervening between these two points 
of rest and renewal. In this circle there is involved a du- 
ality of being or of force, without which there could be no 
renewal of life. The new life cannot be possible without 
the separate unfolding of two distinct organisms, that on 
reaching matureness of structure meet in generative em- 
brace imparting a new seed-life. Now, while we cannot 
trace the lines of union that are mingled in t his new life- 
germ, we are justified in affirming that radiant matter must 
have bridged the chasm between the old lives and the new, 
between the parental duality and the germinal individual- 
ity. 

The same radial lines that give the parental image in 
the mirror by an instantaneous flash of light, give also the 
parental image in the germ-life that evolves a new pater- 
nity.' 

The blending of the positive and negative circles of the 
magnetic circuit, evolving energy and work where broken 
circuits re-unite, thus find their place in the mysterious 
circles of life. As we have seen that all material organ- 
isms take on their organic form around gravital centers, 
drawing their atoms of aggregation from electrical currents 
so the life germs of all living organisms take up their order 
of growth from the magnetic centers of their growing 
forms, insomuch that the organizing potency of life germs 
is evolved from the working potency of magnetic circuits 



238 EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 

and thus radiant matter is carried through all the circuits 
of life in body along the working lines of magnetic strength 
establishing a sensitive union to the central life germ. 

Thus the field of the radiant forces is the field of the 
mysterious births of all parental life The life force is not 
paternal to life currents of organizing strength that are 
regarded in our line of thought as magnetic currents, but 
the life comes into place at the focal points where the con- 
verging oppositely moving magnetic lines touch each other 
under the guidance of magnetic attractions or at points 
where opposite polarities blend into a single constantly 
pulsating bodily form with its pulsing forces. It is to be 
kept in mind that we are here seeking acquaintance with 
circulatory forces that are self organizing and self guiding 
and at the same time are materially conditioned under their 
own laws of guidance. An infinite number of life forms 
may come into, place on the life-plane of these circulatory 
forces, while the one great system of attracting and repel- 
ling currents of magnetization is as fixed in its lines of force 
and orders of work as the rocks at the foundations of the 
mountains. In fact, - all that is strong and abiding in 
matter rests upon these currents of energy, so all that there 
is of life is dependent upon the constancy and perpetually 
pulsating flow of these same unseen potencies of creation. 

We have already gained a glimpse of the thought that 
elementary atoms of matter possess a sovereign identity, 
insomuch that they condition universal energy. 

Atoms of matter come into orgaizations of matter solely 
under their own inherent power of selection. Positive 
and negative elementary atoms are as potent in their aflfin- 



EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 287 

ities of combination as positive and negative electro-mag- 
netic currents are in their lines of motion. 

This being conceded, and surely no chemist will inter- 
pose a doubt, it follows that the growing life structures 
must be conditioned by the atomic elements gathered into 
the germinal structure. Identity of being must depend 
upon the elements grouped by their selective affinities in 
the material bodily organism. Mark the order in all 
propagation of species and you will find that the life-germ 
in its material organism always determines the order of suc- 
cessive individualities of the species; and, hence, the first 
of the line of species must have been determined by the 
elements of matter grouped in the infinitesimal germ as it 
took on life. Now we have come face to face with another 
unifying thought which is, that as the character of the 
varied species of life is consequent upon certain material 
groupings of matter in the germ, it follows that life in 
some form comes into place as a necessity, from such 
groupings, under the grand law of magnetization. Life is 
a universal unity, as light, heat, gravitation, polarization, 
etc., are unities. The life of the infinitesimal germ of the 
tiniest form of being is from the same universal force that 
supplies life to the grandest orders of being "that are 
grouped upon the great life-plane. By consulting the 
composition of the rocks we find elementary crystalline 
work intimately joined to elementary life-forms, so that 
even the rocky foundations of the mountains have come 
into place above the life-plane of creation. From this 
lowest plane of life in rock formation the series is upward 
in creation, line after line in an unbroken series till the 



1^38 EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 

crowning work is reached in the thinking, reasoning ani- 
mal that we call man. The order of ascending life-organ- 
isms is from the simple to the complex. From the lowest 
form of vegetable life to the highest, there is a constant 
succession of new forms of being, while to each ascending 
form there is an endowment of self-perpetuation. There is 
paternity and seed -fruitage that fixes the classifications of 
plants into sub-kingdoms, genera, and species, while they 
fall into groups variously related to one another as broth- 
ers, cousins, and so forth. This plant-paternity that pre- 
serves the continuance of species, involves the necessity of 
the transference of organism in the electro-magnetic con- 
dition of germ-life. 

The plant-likeness in the germ must spring from 
focal sensory lines of matter proceeding from every 
sensory atom of the plant-form to the infinitesimal seed- 
germ, with the faithfulness of the lines of light that form 
sensory images of objects upon the retina of the eye, pro- 
ducing sun pictures of perfect likeness to each object 
within the range of vision. The preservation of perfect 
unity of life and likeness between the growing plant and 
the germ of seed-life within the plant, amid the unnum- 
bered varieties of plant structure can be visualized alone 
under the radial lines of magnetization that we regard as 
identical with the radiant matter of the sunlight. 

To this radiant condition of matter, all living organic 
forms must descend to find the plane of germ-life. As the 
gravital centers of all planetary bodies rest in the neutral 
plane of the sun's equator that fixes the plane of the plan- 
etary orbits, so all of germ-life finds its beginning in the 



EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 239 

plane of radial matter where positive and negative mag- 
netic currents blend into unity. In the vegetable kingdom 
the circle of life from germ to fruitage is from radiant cen- 
ters of matter to radiant centers, the one an evolving cen- 
ter, the other an involving. The radial lines of matter 
converging from without the plant from space in the 
unfolding life, and from within the plant to the germ in 
the infolding life. The circles of life through the succes- 
sive periods of seed and fruitage bear a close relationship 
to the periodic circles of time-measure fixed in the solar 
system by the revolution of the planets. All creative 
work is fixed and carried forward in constantly revolving 
circles. The line of progress is from the smaller to the 
greater. The greater circles infolding all of the smaller, 
and the smaller unfolding and multiplying producing the 
greater. In this intervolving, evolving and blending there 
is a constant preservation of identities of the separate 
orders of life and ranks of organic structure. 

This identity always being preserved and commanded by 
the gravital or germinal life center. All classes of grav- 
ital or germinal energy are weighed or measured, in all 
forms of matter, from center to center, thus determining 
their relative values and orders of sovereignty in the grand 
scale of complex being. 

Under this order of progressive circles and determinate 
centers, the harmony of creative work is preserved in the 
constantlv progressive works of creation. Our thoughts of 
creation begin with the atoms of the sixty-four substances, 
each atom and substance having an identity of form and 
energy that are fixed and immortal. 



240 EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 

From these identities of matter and energy the worlds 
have been fashioned. The first grand division of these 
atoms and substances appears in that grand parental duality 
that exists between positive and negative lines of matter 
that take on the form of electrical currents counterflowing 
in space. The second grand division appears when these 
currents are broken up into atomic forms under the influ- 
ence of the energy of magnetization, and being joined in 
selective generative unions group themselves around grav- 
ital centers of aggregation becoming individualizing po- 
tencies. 

These grand divisions of matter belong to the low plane 
of electrial and magnetic potencies that are native to the 
cold and the darkness of the great deep of unmeasured 
space, but when centers of aggregation are fixed and grav- 
ital attractions spring into place and revolving globes of 
matter divide themselves into families, while atoms of 
matter flow together under strong elective or chemical 
affinities, then as now heat is generated, light is evolved 
and by this means there is a progressive building toward 
the ultimate plane of germinal organisms. When the 
higher plane is reached then follow in their order, com- 
mencing with the elementary groupings of atoms into bio- 
plastic family organisms, the entire complex orders of life 
forms, the dual parental potency of procreation belonging 
to each order of living forms. In the progress of the grand 
series of life's work the steps of each order of progression 
are rigidly consecutive, from the simplest organism to the 
most complex. The more complex being sustained from 
an assimilation of the rudimentary, or less complex forms 
of organic life. 



EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 241 

It is well understood that the higher forms of animal 
life cannot have come into place in the scale of being save 
through the. assimilation of the lower forms of life consti- 
tuting the vegetable kingdom. 

We have already gained a glimpse of the thought that 
the varied forms of life take on complexity of form, and 
perpetuate the same through germ-life, hence, it is by no 
means an improbable inference that the diverse orders of 
being upon the earth have taken on their peculiarity 
of organism from the nature of the organic forms taken 
into their being from their food-supplies. The modifica- 
tion of plant-food is secured in plant-forms of life, so as to 
prepare it for the support of animal life. Without such 
modification of the elements of matter, by converting 
them into organic forms of life, the complex animal 
organisms could not be built. The plant feeds on carbon, 
silex, hydrogen, oxygen, etc. These are taken up from 
earth and sun by the plant, through leaf and rootlet, and 
pass into the delicate life currents that flow through the 
living structure, adding cell to cell, perfecting bud and 
twig, leaf and flower, weaving the entire life of the plant 
from the joint elementary currents of sun and earth, from 
seed-germination to seed-fruitage ; but the elements thus 
built into forms of plant life, representing a completed 
circle of life, while also necessary to animal life, and con- 
stituting animal food could not be taken up into the animal 
organism without first passing through the creative potency 
nf germ-life in rearing vegetable structures out of such 
food elements as earth and sun can jointly give in element- 
arv forms that are without life — the same elements out of 



242 EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 

which the rocks and minerals are built. Thus the seem- 
ingly impassable gulf between the lifeless kingdom of the 
rocks, earths and minerals, and the complex animal king- 
dom, is bridged over by the germinal forces that have 
come into place on the low plane of vegetable life, and 
these from the still lower plane of rock formations. 

The food supplies of the vegetable kingdom only give 
simple organic forms of life. T.hese forms are directly, by 
generation, children of the sun and earth, and all they 
have of life and sensory existence springs from the joint 
embrace and perpetual care and nurture of the procrea- 
tive potencies of the oppositely charged magnetic currents 
of sun and earth. The germinal life and the food supply 
of the plant fix the boundaries of its being. There can be 
no evolution of plant-life into animal life. It is not scien- 
tific to search for such an order of development. The 
rocks and earths in their peculiar organic forms do not be- 
come plant or tree, neither do the plant and tree in their 
organic life structures become animals even of the lowest 
type. The protoplasmic elements of plant-life or plant- 
food are derived directly from earth and sun. These ele- 
ments pass into the plant as magnetic currents through 
root and leaf, and in the growing structure become the 
elements of plant growth constituting such combinations 
of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen in elementary 
living forms of matter called protoplasm, as are needed 
to perfect the plant structures and complete the circle of 
plant-life. 

It is important here to mark the fact that the tree or 
plant has no independent existence separate, from sun and 



EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 243 

earth-paternity, save that which is wrapped up, latent, in 
the seed -germ. 

Cut off the sun-currents from the leaves of the tree or 
the earth-currents from the rootlets, and the life of the tree 
is at once weakened and soon destroyed. *The flow of the 
sap through the cells of the plant demands the working 
presence of elements and potencies that elude the touch of 
scientific experiment, proclaiming their occult presence 
alone to the inner eye of reason in the mind of the 
experimenter. 

Within the plant, shut in by delicate cell-walls of fine 
membranous texture, the food of the plant is carried in 
constantly flowing and counterflowing rivulets. From . 
these flowing currents the work of plant assimilation goes 
systematically forward, building up the plant-structure 
from the germinal seed center, both upward toward the 
sun and downward toward the center of the earth, observ- 
ing a constant balance between the upward and downward 
growths of the unfolding organism. These rivulets are 
kept in flow by a sensitive guidance of a centralized 
energy within the plant that takes its definitive guiding 
lines of work from the germinal life-center of the plant ; 
hence, the building of the cell walls and the flow of the 
plant-food are contemporaneous in their appearance to the 
eye of the scientist that observes the progressive work of 
plant-structure, as the plant grows by adding cell to cell, 
each cell seeming to possess within itself the power of self- 
propagation. This power of self-propagation reveals an 
order of life that bridges the gulf between the living plant- 
organism and the elementary atoms of matter that are 



244 EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 

built into plant structures. This order of life seems to 
include both environing cell and the environed circulating 
sap of the plant, insomuch that they build within each 
other and from each other as if they were the material 
work of some spiritual builder. 

This brings us to the border-land of creative work, 
and it is here that true science brings all human thought 
in its inquiry after the true basis of life. The problem of 
life in the protoplasm that constitutes the food of all living 
organisms, when solved, will unify human thought and 
break down partition walls between innumerable schools 
of thought that are now dividing society into warring fac- 
tions. Spirit and matter, though they may represent two 
entities in creation, surely work together in full accord in 
the fashioning of all material structures. 

The protoplasmic state of matter occupies so large 
a space in scientific investigation that it is unnecessary to 
say more respecting it than to note the fact that in proto- 
plasm there are grouped elements of matter, viz., oxygen, 
nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon, out of which living struc- 
tures are reared. These constitute the elements that 
await the pulsating currents of life to carry them to their 
place in the growing forms of life. By pressing thought 
a step further it must be evident that protoplasm gives the 
material conditions of life and that without these conditions 
there could be no food supplies for a single growing form 
of life. Again, we find that life is not only dependent on 
food supplies of matter but upon such supplies raised to 
radiant conditions to secure its assimilation into living, 
organic forms. Life, therefore, like light, seeks a radiant 



EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 245 

plane of matter where it alone can reveal its working pres- 
ence. Upon such plane all forms of life come into place 
as births from a common parentage, and yet each form is 
endowed with a personality of being peculiar to itself and 
with powers of reproduction that constitute them factors 
upon the radiant plane of creative potencies. 

But it has been already indicated that there is an in- 
dwelling pulsating energy in matter in its cohesive affinities 
that secures organic aggregation or growth below the radi- 
ant plane of light and life. The night and the darkness 
constitute a part of the successive days of creative work. 
These precede in their order of work all the higher orders 
of being. 

The magnet teaches that radiant matter is possessed of 
a constant energy of work that is normal to the cold and 
the darkness, and more than this that all forms of matter 
and all conditions of space are held in charge of matter in 
its radiant lines of energy. In this condition of radiant 
matter we find the conditioning cause of germ life in pro- 
toplasmic conditions of matter. 

From this dark plane of magnetization germ centers 
derive their strength in pulsating currents of elementary 
atoms that infold individuality of germ organism and un- 
fold living forms of being. Hence, we affirm that in this 
radiant elementary plane of matter to which all forms of 
matter are transparent as the atmosphere is to sunlight, we 
are to fix the material basis of all of life. Without this 
the problem of life finds no scientific solution, and with 
it the mysteries of the origin of life are no greater than 
its continuance. 



2-t6 EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 

It is unnecessary to follow the leadings of scientific 
thought further in this border land of elementary life and 
being than to fix the natural boundaries at which complex 
forms of organic life take up the initial lines of their pro- 
gressive orders of being. 

It would give us great pleasure to be able to discover 
the presence of indwelling intelligence at these sources of 
life, and we by no means deny such a presence, but such 
unfoldings of life from protoplasmic conditions of matter 
are no higher displays of a divine presence than is the 
continuance of life at the high plane of germinal repro- 
duction. The low condition of life that appears in proto- 
plasm discloses no seed of plant or Qgg of animal, but the 
atoms of matter thus grouped pass by affinities into seed 
structure as naturally as they pass to the unfolding life or- 
ganism proceeding from seed organisms. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTRUM. 

N the commencement of our investigation of electrical 
phenomena, we had no adequate conception of the 
ultimates in matter and in material force to which they 
would lead us. 

Our first conception of electrical energy compassing 
space with its diversely moving currents, with a correlate 
magnetic energy, holding all matter within the firm grasp 
of its attractions, and these dual manifestations of one 
grand commanding energy presiding overall material phe- 
nomena; we did not think of this moving, all-pervading 
energy as holding within its grand attractions and repul- 
sions, the ultimates of material analysis — the primaries of 
all that we call matter ; but in following the guidance of 
the working forces in matter and tracing them to their 
source in electrical and magnetic energy, we also found in 
this energy the elastic elements of all material organisms. 

We at first regarded it visionary to allow such thoughts 
a place in our conceptions of matter, and for a time were 
only disposed to hint at the possibility of such an origin 
to matter. 

The strength, elasticity and vibratory ring of the elec- 
trical cords that fill space and move through all body, 
led us to 'the conclusion that out of these must have 



1248 TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTRUM. 

come forth the subtle elements that electrical attractions 
have woven into the foundations, and have built into the 
rising structures of creation. We knew that all matter 
revealed a sympathy for the dual force of the magnet 
and the electrical current, so that it comes together in 
its unions as currents and magnets come together, pos- 
itive seeking negative and negative positive, but it did 
not occur to us that electrical affinities in matter pro- 
claimed an electrical origin. Even the building of the 
sunlight into the growing organisms of life, and treas- 
uring itself up in the wood and the coal of past ages 
for the uses of man in succeeding ages, was regarded by 
us as simply one of the many methods of earth build- 
ing, and as an evidence of providential provision for 
the wants of man. 

But when the phenomena of light and heat became 
in our mind electrical phenomena, and its electro-mag- 
netic origin was fully accepted, and its dynamic energy 
traced to its potential in body, the final step became a 
logical necessity, and the ultimates of matter were reached 
in the metallic strength of primary electrical forces. 

The line of argument seems to us logical, and we 
must now verify our reasoning by comparing it with the 
stern logic of Nature's grand argument, as disclosed in 
creative work. 

It must be admitted that this final step has long been a 
felt necessity, while it has been restrained, under the 
religious conviction of its trenching on holy ground. 
Oar idea of creation as a divine work beginning in mi- 
raculous divine agency has seemed to say to us, "all 



TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTRUM. 24!) 

scientific investigation must be satisfied with ?7iaterial 
second causes, resting in a Divine First Cause." 

Hence, our scientists have been struggling with the sec- 
ond causes of fire and the gases as the first things of creation . 
The result is seen in the hypothesis of creation commenc- 
ing with fire and ending in the burned out cinders of an 
exhausted conflagration. So our planetary systems have 
been lighted by molten suns with gaseous envelopes, and 
radiating energy that must sooner or later end in utter ex- 
haustion, and the problem of their unabating energy has 
staggered the best minds in scientific work and imagination 
has come to their aid where reason could not go. The 
sun light, with its omnipotent building energy, has been 
regarded as a secondary cause rather than a primary, and 
depending upon the great body of the sun for its energy, 
instead of having been the sun builder, commissioned for 
its work by a self moving power fulfilling the purposes of 
a divine guidance. The step we have taken is from sec- 
ondary material causes to a first cause. 

It leads us from matter at rest, in its potential state to 
matter in motion in its dynamic condition. It leads us to 
affirm as we have already done, that the primary condition 
of matter is motion and motion in the unending circles of 
electrical potencies. We regard the divine order of build- 
ing as from the dynamic to the potential. 

This step lays upon us the burden of showing that the 
primary atoms of matter have their home in the electro- 
magnetic forces and are evolved from them into the material 
organisms of creation. We cheerfully commit our hypoth- 
esis to the logic of proof, and we affirm, 



250 TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTRUM. 

i. That the dynamic energy of electricity and mag- 
netism proclaims them possessed of a material base. 

It must be granted when we come under the command 
of electrical law that attraction and repulsion are equally 
balanced forces, hence all material attractions have their 
balance in some way in equal material repulsions, therefore 
the potential attractions of all matter in body must have 
corresponding material repulsions in space surrounding 
body; and more than this, the dynamic of space must 
command all the potential of body, for all aggregations of 
matter are at the command of the dynamic energy of space 
and move in circuits fixed by its power. 

The power of the dynamic forces is made subservient to 
the will of man and is found adequate to any work. The 
great work of engineering performed at Hellgate, near 
New York, is an illustration of great value. The work of 
months was given to preparing chambers in the solid rock 
under the waters of the sound where the dynamic energy 
could be securely placed so as to exert its energy upon the 
incumbent rocks. To every charge of the slumbering 
giant there was attached a wire as a conveyer of the electric 
spark at its appointed time. These wires had their leading 
wires carefully arranged and passed through a well pro- 
tected conducting tube to a safe distance on shore to the 
temporary structure that the engineer had prepared for 
bringing them under his immediate presence and command. 
His battery for awakening electrical energy was prepared 
and awaited the opportune moment for doing its work, 
and when it arrived an infant's hand pressed the key of 
command and, with the flash of the electric spark, the 



TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTKIT}!. ^5] 

earth quivered and the solid rocks with their incumbent 
waters were lifted in air like the playthings of a child. 
This is evidence that the strongest foundations of matter 
hold an attractive energy inferior to the repelling agency 
of matter that may be brought against it. While it shows 
that great attractive energy slumbers in matter, it also 
shows that the awakened energies of repulsion are equal to 
their mastery. The elastic strength of the treasured up 
dynamite is an affirmation of the treasured strength that 
is in matter under all of its myriad forms. In the Hell- 
gate explosion it is matter at rest struggling against matter 
in motion, and struggling in vain. This leads us to inquire 
after the evidence of matter in the passing electrical cur- 
rents of space. 

I find in the Encyclopedia Britannica a statement of the 
researches of M. Fusiniere, who has made the study of the 
deposition of material substances in the passage of electrical 
discharges through body one of great interest and profit. 
We learn from him that, "Lightning contains like the 
common electric spark, matter in a state of extreme divis- 
ion and in a state of ignition and combustion. 

"In the matter deposited by lightning on houses and on 
trees which have been struck by it" he has found "iron, sul- 
phur and carbon. Lightning divides and subdivides itself 
indefinitely into sparks which end in being not much larger 
than those of ordinary machines and each of these sparks 
contains ponderable substances in the state of extreme 
division already mentioned." 

The lightning deposits the substances with which it is 
charged while it passes through them and while it breaks 



-JoZ TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTRUM. 

hard bodies, and it deposits them on the surface by which 
it enters the body, as well as on that by which it escapes, 
and also on the surface of fracture. 

When the resistance to its passage is not great it leaves 
no perceptible deposit and the quantity of matter depos- 
ited increases and is proportional to the difficulty with 
which the lightning traverses the body. At the same time 
that lightning deposits the matter which it contains it takes 
up new matter from the combustible bodies through which 
it passes, such as iron, charcoal, etc. The deposited matter 
tends always to expend itself in thin fibres on the surface 
which receives it, and it does this most readily on surfaces 
that are smooth and free from all asperities. 

In a pear tree which had been struck by lightning in 
1827, M. Fusiniere discovered very remarkable effects. 
Though its trunk, three feet in diameter, was torn into 
four parts throughout its whole length, no foreign matter 
nor odor could be perceived either in its roots or in the 
earth. 

At the place where the branches joined the trunk the 
substance of the pear tree was altered to the depth of sev- 
eral lines. It had acquired an acid taste and a reddish 
color. It exhaled while burning a penetrating and pecul- 
iar odor, and it continued to burn without flame till it 
was completely consumed. The matter of the lightning 
had penetrated the tissue of the wood and there presented 
traces of iron. These and many other facts seem to prove 
that iron exists in space ; and it is well known that the 
same metal, mixed with magnesia, nitrous salts and organic 
substances is found in rain water. Vol. 8 page 584. 



TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTRUM. 263 

The composition of meteoric substances evidently gath- 
ered in space reveals the presence of matter in the forces 
from which they have been ejected. Such bodies have 
come to the earth of many tons weight, and they only re- 
veal the methods by which the heavenly bodies have been 
formed amid the rapidly moving electrical circles of space. 
The planetary bodies that are now sweeping space with 
their great orbital attractions, do not allow of the success- 
ful aggregation of any rival bodies as they, like great mo- 
nopolists, gather all lesser bodies to themselves. The 
efforts made by our scientists to magnify these chance vis- 
itants from space into bodies of any importance in the 
solar system, are, in our view, wholly unwarranted by any 
tangible data, especially within the circle of the asteroids. 

The remarkable velocity of the orbital electrical currents 
that move near to the sun utterly forbids the gathering and 
descent of any meteoric bodies of importance upon his 
surface. The entire space is under the tremendous work- 
ing power of the sun and his inferior planets and the elec- 
trical energy of the entire field of forces contributes 
directly to their upbuilding. 

The sun needs no fuel to feed his fires, save such as goes 
directly to feed his electro-magnetic illumimation, and 
this comes to him freely bearing all the primal energy 
that has made him the commander of a system of forces 
bearing triumphantly in their currents a family of worlds. 
Give to electricity the command of the dynamic energies 
of space, and to magnetism the creating, fashioning power 
in planetary bodies, and their illuminated surfaces the 
communing fields of these forces, where they meet and 



254 TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTRUM. 

work together to build worlds, and meteoric showers and 
cometary bodies will sink into insignificance as the mere 
dust of the balance. 

This view of the solar system gives to us great globes of 
matter under the control of magnetic currents and the out- 
lying fields of space, under the control of the electrical 
currents, laden with the material elements of world-build- 
ing, and still carrying forward the grand works of creation 
towards a higher and more perfect degree of order. This 
gives us matter in motion correlating matter at rest, and 
matter in these two forms expending its working energy 
under the joint illumination of electricity and magnetism. 

This leads 

2. To the work of considering spectrum analysis as 
giving testimony to the material nature of electrical cur- 
rents. It will be granted by the candid mind, without 
doubt, that if the elements of matter are found in the dy- 
namic forces that the source of material organization is in 
these forces. 

Scientific experiment has been successfully working out 
the problem and all we have to do is to mark its triumphant 
demonstration. 

The spectroscope reveals just what the chemist in his 
laboratory could have prophesied if he had given to elec- 
tricity and light their commanding potencies in material 
organizations. When the galvanic battery was placed in 
the hands of the chemist it gave him a key with which he 
could unlock Nature's secrets that he had not before pos- 
sessed. The very force with which Nature had built was 
placed in his hands as an agency to pull down thai she had 



TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTRUM. 255 

built. The retort and the crucible were of but little value 
after this in reaching the higher tests of material strength. 
He could evolve a more intense heat and a brighter flame 
from the electrodes of his battery than he had before se- 
cured under his compound blow pipes. Such a result was a 
complete triumph over the locked up secrets of Nature, her 
fortresses must all give way under such an agency in the 
hands of man and henceforth the wisdom and strength of 
the builder would reveal the very foundation stones of the 
structure built. The sovereignty of electricity over the 
forces of Nature was thus securely established under the 
hand of the chemist in his laboratory, but has awaited 
proclamation for a century. The spectroscope is well cal- 
culated to make such proclamation in the dark bands of 
the solar spectrum, by which the chemistry of sun, planets 
and stars has been revealed. It is scarcely possible that in 
a work like this we should be able to convey to the common 
reader a full knowledge of the methods of scientists in 
reaching their conclusions from spectrum analysis. 

The spectrum presents to our eye a ray of light divided 
by refraction into seven clearly defined divisions, and each 
division or section is defined by its characteristic color. 
The order of division and colors always remaining the 
same. These colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, 
indigo and violet. 

This spectrum of colors is produced by light rays moving 
in straight lines, each order of lines possessed of a distinct 
material structure. The red rays are called the heating 
rays, the green and yellow the illuminating rays, and the 
blue, indigo and violet the chemical or atomic rays. Ac- 



2o6 TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTRUM. 

companying this visible spectrum there are invisible rays of 
greater heating and chemical power than the visible, so 
that the heat is more intense below the red rays, and the 
chemical effects are greater above the violet. 

Thus we have in light, matter drawn out in infinitely 
fine vibratory lines, and yet lines of such strength that 
they pursue their track through space in perfect, independ- 
ent lines of force. These lines also seem to possess within 
themselves the power of motion. Now the chemist has 
found that each substance in matter, when reduced to its 
dynamic state in flame or in light, has its peculiar color 
and its angles of reflection, so that: its color and place upon 
the spectrum can be accurately determined. Thus, "salts 
of copper give a blue color ; soda flame is yellow, while 
the flame of potassa.is of a beautiful violet color." Be- 
tween the poles of a powerful voltaic battery, zinc gives a 
blue color in strata or bands, antimony a lilac color, mer- 
cury a pale blue, cadmium an intense green, arsenic a 
magnificent lilac, and bismuth a variety of colors undergo- 
ing rapid changes. The all-important fact that we wish 
to fix in the mind by thus bringing matter into a state of 
illumination is, that it in all cases is resolved into a force 
and at once assumes a linear order of motion. The 
metals are no exception to the law. "A flame containing 
several metals gives, at one and the same time, the char- 
acteristic bands of all." Another important fact must be 
noted that is to us more difficult of solution. If light 
from other sources pass through these metallic flames, like 
that from an electric lamp, they occasion dark bands in 
the spectrum precisely corresponding to the colored bands 
of their own emission. 



TESTI3IONY OF THE SPECTRUM. 257 

The theory of our scientists is, that the flame of the 
metals absorbs or quenches their like, leaving a shadow 
instead of their appropriate color. In the solar spectrum 
these dark lines appear, and it is assumed that in the 
atmosphere of the sun the flames of these metals are 
crossed by the great volume of the sun's light, and these 
lines are cut out of the spectrum by such flames or vapors 
of incandescence. As the writer has no idea of matter be- 
ing in an incandescent state in the sun, and especially the 
metals, he must discard the theory, while accepting 
the facts of metallic lines being detected in the spectrum of 
the sun and other heavenly bodies, as of the first impor- 
tance. The dark lines belonging to iron, calcium, mag- 
nesium, sodium, chromium, etc., are found in the solar 
spectrum. These metals as a consequence are inferred to 
be constituents of the solar atmosphere. 

That there is a determinate character given to the spec- 
trum by the condition of the sun's electro-sphere cannot 
be doubted as it presents a different appearance when taken 
from different parts of the sun's surface. "The spots," 
says Prof. Proctor, "have not the same spectrum as the 
bright disc; the ordinarily bright parts have not the same 
spectrum as the exceptionally bright parts called the facu- 
lse. Then the spectrum of the solar spots is variable, act- 
ually changing under the eye of the observer." We are 
then justified in clinging firmly to the theory that solar 
lines of light in the sun and on the earth responsively in- 
fluence each other as the electro-magnetic lines of gravity 
influence each other between sun and earth. The sun and 
earth as two grand batteries and magnets furnishing the 



258 TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTRUM. 

electrical strength by which the exchange of light and 
power is made. We love to think of these lines of light 
as the nerve cords of the solar system and as conveyers of 
all creative and material energy throughout the system. 
The thought is already before us that electrical currents 
also take up and carry matter in their passage through 
matter and that they also deposit matter when they meet 
with great resistance. This is just what we understand the 
electrical currents of light do at both sun and earth. They 
pass through space without resistance, but in the atmos- 
phere of both sun and earth they encounter strong resist- 
ance, and as light is thereby evolved they both give off 
and receive material substances in a dynamic condition. 
It should be borne in mind that currents moving in the 
same direction attract each other, while those moving in 
opposite directions repel, consequently with equal attrac- 
tions and repulsions these lines of light sweep the heavens 
from sun to earth and from earth to sun without interfer- 
ence, gathering up their oppositely charged currents of 
matter in their passage, and are always laden with the ele- 
ments of material structures. 

All that we desire, to place our hypothesis upon the 
solid basis of demonstration, rests in the accepted analysis 
of the solar spectrum, namely, that all of the primary ele- 
ments in matter may be absorbed or taken up in the sun- 
beams, or, in more appropriate terms, in all forms of light 
in all worlds. 

The grand office of light is thus disclosed to be the con- 
veyance of matter to our earth as a builder, and this con- 
veyance is made across the great distance separating earth 



TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTRUM.. 259 

from sun ; and not only this, it does the same work to a 
degree between stars and earth, for in star-light the pres- 
ence of metallic substances is detected ; the conclusion is 
natural and we think inevitable that all world-building is 
by means of the light as a builder, and that it builds from 
itself. The hypothesis that it builds from sun to earth and 
planets and hence is a conveyer of a constant out-going 
energy from the sun without any return, is not consistent 
with Nature's great law, equivalents. Neither is it consist- 
ent to suppose that its work is simply a transfer of equal 
energy from sun to planets and from planets to sun, for in 
such a work there would be no world building. On our 
earth we find the work of upbuilding constantly going on. 
The earth has its marked periods of growth or of creative 
development. It in no respect can give back all it re- 
ceives, and why may we not conclude that it is thus with 
both sun and planets? and if so, the grand work of build- 
ing upon all of the bodies of the solar system must come 
in upon them from the moving forces of space, as we have 
before stated, and the light, laden with matter, we know is 
the builder. 

In referring to the "sun as the source of power," Prof. 
Steele in his text-book on chemistry, says, "The sun 
warms, enlivens and animates the earth. In the labora- 
tory of the leaf he produces the most wonderful chemical 
changes. We see his handiwork in the building of the 
forest, the carpeting of the meadow and the tinting of the 
rose. On the ladder of the sunbeam water climbs to the 
sky and falls again as rain. The very thunder of Niagara 
is but the sudden unbending of the spring that was first 



260 TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTRUM. 

coiled by the sun in the evaporation from the ocean. Up 
to the sun, then, we trace all the hidden manifestations of 
power. Yet the force that produces such intricate and 
wide-extended changes is one twenty-three hundred mil- 
lionth part of the tide that flows in every direction from 
this great central orb." 

That such an energy as is here referred to comes in up- 
on the earth through the influence of the sunlight there 
can be no doubt, but that the sun is the source of such 
energy increased by the difference between a globe 8,ooo 
miles in diameter and the entire globe of the sun's influ- 
ence, amounting to nearly six thousand millions of miles 
in diameter is a statement that is in direct opposition to 
the great law of gravity. 

[Note. The comparison here made between the diam- 
eter of the solid body of the earth and the diameter of 
the sun's influence in the solar system does not seem just 
but it conforms to the theory of the schools, that the sun 
is the source of creative energy on the planets.] 

By this law action and reaction are equal between all 
the heavenly bodies. According to this law the sun can 
give only as he receives. Like any other organized body 
of matter he must receive strength from some source equal 
to the amount of work he is constantly performing. He 
can only build his sunbeams into the planets as he is built 
upon by the energy that comes in upon him from the 
mighty attractions that extend from the sun to the outer- 
most planet of the solar system. 

The same light and energy that come to our earth as 
building and controlling forces are the same in the sun 



TESTIMONY OF THE SPECTRUM. 261 

from whence they come. Hence, instead of regarding 
the sun as a great waster we should regard him as a great 
gatherer. He is a great giver because he is strengthened 
by a vast globe of forces extending around him to the dis- 
tance of three thousand millions of miles. All that he 
expends of his munificent strength is the comparatively 
small measure that the planets receive, and the outermost 
planets as we have seen shine by their own light and as 
sun systems impart of their strength at the command of 
the sun's attracting energy. The hypothesis we present 
regards the whole solar system as consisting of a vast globe 
of electrical forces weighted with the elements of matter 
as the spectrum has revealed in the sunlight, and that with 
an unfailing energy they are building from without upon 
the sun and planetary bodies of the system, and that this 
process of building has been carried forward from the be- 
ginning of all aggregations of matter as evolutions from 
the dynamic energy of space. 

We thus reach that unity from the facts of Nature, after 
which all scientific thought is now searching, and we have 
merely followed the guiding star of demonstrable scientific 
truths. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
SUN AND PLANETS. ARE THEY INHABITED? 

IN calculating the power of magnets, two conditions of 
power must be considered: i, The magnitude of the 
magnetic body, and 2, The number and length of the 
electrical currents that encircle the magnet. In construct- 
ing instruments of great electrical power, systems of sev- 
eral wires, thoroughly insulated, are so arranged that 
according to the principle of induction, broken currents 
acting and reacting upon each other by means of rapidly 
uniting and breaking circuits, serve to multiply power. 

You have doubtless already fixed in your minds the fact 
that the soft iron core of the horse -shoe magnet is endowed 
with its strength from induced currents of magnetism, 
coming in upon it under the command of the electrical 
current passed around it in its coiled envelope of insulated 
wire. The passing current is not allowed the least possi- 
ble electrical connection with the encircled iron core, and 
yet it becomes saturated with induced magnetic currents 
of great strength. 

On the other hand, were the core of the magnet made 
of steel instead of iron and thoroughly magnetized, so as 
to become a permanent magnet, the magnetism of the 
permanent magnet would cause induced electrical cur- 
rents to pass in the wires around it. So by bringing a wire 
traversed by an electrical current suddenly near to another 



SUN AND PLANETS. 2«H 

wire in its natural state, a current of electricity will instan- 
taneously be developed in the latter wire, or if suddenly 
removed from it a current would also pass in the natural 
wire. Hence, by uniting and breaking the current of the 
charged wire, an induced current would be made to pass 
back and forth through the natural wire, its rapidity gov- 
erned by the opening and closing of the circuit of the 
electrical current in the battery wire. ''Thus, by a simple 
mechanical action, making an electrified wire or a magnet 
move in close proximity to a natural wire, an induced 
current was produced in the natural wire of very short 
duration, but capable of becoming increasingly energetic, 
according to the rapidity of the motion of the electrified 
wire," and by this discovery of electrical and magnetic 
induction made by Faraday, the grand results of advanc- 
ing electrical science, for the last half century have been 
attained, and yet there has been among our best scientists 
a lack of clear conceptions respecting the distinction to be 
noted as existing in Nature, between electricity and mag- 
netism. Ampere regarded magnets and currents as iden- 
tical, and taught that "magnets are bodies traversed 
continually by electric currents." 

Baile, a French scientist, says, ; 'Here are two series of 
facts, magnetic phenomena and electric phenomena, sepa- 
rated to this day, yet coming together and confounding 
themselves with one another," and he seems to adopt the 
thought of Ampere, that "one and the same cause may 
produce effects differing from one another." 

Now, it seems to us, that while magnetic and electrical 
currents induce each other, and may be converted into 



264 SUN AND PLANETS. 

each other, that there is this marked and all-important 
difference between them. Electricity moves in unbroken 
currents through space, having its home in space, while 
magnetism moves in broken and polarized currents through 
body, bound to a magnetic center, thus having its home 
in body. This distinction we have already made, but we 
need to review the thought here, as our hypothesis is based 
upon the belief that all of creation is under the guid- 
ance of these two great correlate forces, and that all of 
space is endowed with electrical orbital currents, crossed by 
radial magnetic currents, and in the rapid and natural in- 
terchange of these currents of space with the currents of 
body, all the mechanical evolutions of creation are secured. 
It is clearly evident that the great principle of induction 
is the pivotal center between electrical and magnetic phe- 
nomena. They work over against each other across the 
dividing line between body and space. Magnetic bodies 
treasure up power, and are constantly strengthened by the 
work they perform. This treasured power or unfailing 
strength of the magnet, is an induced power, derived from 
the inducing currents of electricity that circulate around 
it, so that the electrical currents of space are the nursing 
currents of magnetized bodies. All organizations of mat- 
ter are perfected under the nursing forces of electrical cir- 
cles that play around all magnetic bodies, and impart 
perennial strength to all of the building forces that perme- 
ate them. It is but a step from the contemplation of this 
principle of magnetic strength treasured up in the magnet, 
constantly fed from the inducing currents of space, to the 
contemplation of the sun, as the great reservoir of mag- 



SUN AND PLANETS. 265 

netic strength equal to the task of driving the entire ma- 
chinery of the solar system. I grant this is a thought that 
almost overpowers the imagination. It seems almost pro- 
fane to attempt such a survey of the grand display of 
creative power as appears in the heavens, but an open door 
is here set before us into the outer courts of the great 
temple reared as by divine command, where we can view 
as sons of God, the work that has been carried forward 
during the ages, without the sound of a hammer or the 
confused jargon of the workmen; and shall we not enter? 
There surely can only be a blessing in the search after the 
hidden builders of Nature's grand temples. 

In the mechanism of creation there is a self-working 
energy in constant play between elements and develop- 
ment that brings under tribute both matter and force. 
There is a unity of result and perfection of structure se- 
cured by the interworking and harmonious combination 
of the elements of matter marshaled under the direction 
of living and self-guiding forces. 

Both matter and energy have a part to play, a work to 
perform, and are constantly fulfilling their mission as 
builders. Out of themselves come forth wonderful crea- 
tions, as births spring from living parentage, multiplying 
and developing in their, order all of the possibilities of 
life and being, of power and structure. From the natural 
and possibly divinely established union between force and 
matter, as between power and machine, the work of crea- 
tion moves forward. The power always in supply and the 
machine always responding to its touch. 

The rhythm of force currents moving through our own 

17 



266 SUN AND PLANETS. 

bodies, going forth from brain and heart, perpetuating our 
being, is but the hum of the machinery that is working in 
all of the various orders of being that inhabit all worlds, 
so that worlds in their order are built up, sustained and 
guided by force currents that move through them, consti- 
tuting them machines as well as bodies ; hence, in contem- 
plating the formation of our system of worlds we are 
compelled to regard them as living wheels of a grand sys- 
tem of machinery that is moved by the force currents of 
creative power. There is a machine structure to all of 
Nature's works set up for the application of working power 
and a power is ever present to take possession of all rising 
structures. With this view of creation it follows that we 
are to regard sun and planets as great reservoirs of work- 
ing forces adequate to the supply of the great energy that 
holds them in place and gives them their wonderful veloc- 
ities of daily and annual revolution. 

Let us endeavor to gain full possession of the thought 
here passing before us. If we could but take our places 
with the favored dwellers in the sun and could there gain 
adequate conceptions of the sun's magnitude and power,- 
we would drop out of our creeds the thought of our race 
of human beings standing at the head of created intelli- 
gences. We should cease to regard this grand system of 
worlds only made for man, and even the great sun himself 
created simply to furnish light for our dwellings and warmth 
and nourishment for our bodies. 

We would there find a globe of vast magnitude revolv- 
ing in a constantly illuminated atmosphere. 

The light of the stars would be quenched, and the light 



SUN AND PLANETS. 2W 

that would seem to come from other bodies would seem so 
insignificant that the thoughts of a self-luminous atmos- 
phere would take possession of the mind. Great shadows, 
high mountains and deep valleys doubtless break up the 
sun's day, so that in his own surroundings there are pro- 
visions for that diversity of landscape and climate that are 
needful for the highest orders of mind. 

The tropical regions of South America present a struc- 
tural arrangement of mountains, valleys and high plains, 
of such a nature as to furnish all varieties of climate that 
may be desired under the most powerful rays of a tropical 
sun, teaching us that the surface structure of a planet may 
be made a compensation for change of seasons and temper- 
ature arising from revolution of the earth. 

The immense size of the sun's body affords ample scope 
for the variety of structure needed. It furnishes material 
for the largest display and grandest variety of surface 
changes suited to climatic modifications such as appear 
under the equator upon the earth. 

Again, the light of the sun is distributed over the entire 
body of the sun with increased intensity under the disturb- 
ing influence of the eight planets that reciprocally give 
their light to each other; also the poles of the sun are at 
a vast distance from central points of illumination under 
the planets on his equator. 

The great spots that are seen upon the sun tell us 
plainly that there are mountains of observation thrusting 
themselves up through the sun's photosphere, from which 
his inhabitants may gain a knowledge of outlying worlds. 
Be this as it may, we are compelled to regard the sun as 



268 su:n and planets. 

both the great illuminator of the solar system, and the 
grand reservoir of all his creative and moving forces, and 
it would seem to us like reversing the order of Nature that 
he should dispense benefits that are not native in the ele- 
ments of his own organization ; or that he should cause a 
profusion of life to spring up on one and we believe all of 
the planets of the solar system, and not have a grander 
profusion of being springing forth from his own body. All 
of the conditions of life, and life of a high order, are found 
in the elements of the sun's organism, and we can but re- 
gard it as a matter of necessity, that the highest and most 
perfect orders of being should appear there. 

If life in the sun follow the orders of evolutionary de- 
velopment as seen upon the earth, it must have secured 
orders of intellectual beings for transcending those of man, 
and yet beings of material form. 

In the sun there has been gathered a vast body of mat- 
ter under the constant influence of solar light, and subject 
to the constant play of magnetic forces. 

These furnish the grand conditions of life and growth, 
and in fact magnetization, and organization of body and 
development of life, invariably follow each other in their 
order upon the earth, and why not in the sun ? 

The reasons for regarding the sun as more highly 
magnetic than the planets are, 

i. His power is sufficient to make him the balancing 
center of all the planets and satellites and to control them 
in their orbits. This is demonstrative of vast magnetic 
strength. 

2. His illuminating energy is greatly superior in inten- 



SUN AND PLANETS. 2W) 

sity to that of the planets, and we have seen from these 
papers that such illumination is caused by the action and 
reaction of electro-magnetic currents of force between sun 
and planets. The principle of induction also teaches, as 
the circle of electrical currents that play around the sun 
extend out from him at a working distance of twenty-six 
hundred millions of miles, it must possess within its organic 
structure a system of magnetic currents of equal strength 
as a balance of energy. Another cause of increased mag- 
netic strength is his rapid revolution in the face of the in- 
coming attractions from the planetary bodies. 

The sun revolves at the rate of some 4,000 miles per 
hour, and at eight points in his circuit of revolution the 
planets pour in upon him disturbing attractions. These 
eight tides of forces come to the sun's body as retarding 
forces that must be overcome by the revolving strength of 
his internal magnetic forces which are strengthened by the 
burden of the work thus done. A rapid making and break- 
ing magnetic currents always multiplies power. The rapid 
pulsations of magnetic currents from equator to poles of 
the sun that are disturbed and broken by planetary cur- 
rents must fill the body with a flow of magnetic strength 
of immense magnitude, such as the great light of his 
body reveals. 

Comparing the sun with our earth we find his diameter 
some no times greater, — that while we can visit the 
regions of our north pole by a journey of less than 6,000 
miles from the equator, that if an inhabitant of the sun it 
would require a journey of 660,000 miles, and then that 
while large tracts of country lying around our north and 



270 SUN AND PLANETS. 

south poles are locked in the cold embrace of perpetual 
winter, the entire body of the sun is surrounded by a 
constantly luminous atmosphere, and that the long lines 
of magnetic energy that are made to play so rapidly 
through his body from equator to poles serve as warming 
and stimulating agencies to secure the production of every 
species of life under the most favorable conditions of 
development. 

With this view of the immense organism of the sun, and 
with the principles of illumination as presented in these 
papers, we gain the grandest conceptions possible of the 
conditions of life in the broad expanse of the sun's fields 
of perennial verdure, and its groves and forests of un- 
bounded extent and magnificent grandeur, and upon its 
oceans, seas, lakes and rivers that outrival our highest 
conceptions of majesty and beauty. We have been told 
of a land where there should be no need of the sun, or of 
the moon to enlighten it, and that there was no night 
there and we have still failed to gain any conception 
of such a land as fashioned from material creations, and 
yet such a world the sun is, and we doubt not inhabited 
with high orders of being that pass through stages and 
conditions of life similar to our own. 

As the sun is the balancing body of the solar system 
and holds all the forces of the system under the control of 
his commanding energy, it is but reasonable to conclude 
that in the distribution of orders of life, he should be 
more highly endowed than all of the planetary worlds 
taken in the aggregate. 

The importance of the sun in the solar system has been 



SUV AND PLANETS. 271 

heretofore estimated from its beneficent work of dispen- 
sing light and heat to the planets; it has consequent! v 
been regarded as a vast generating furnace of consuming 
combustible matter, from which light and heat have been 
radiated for millions of years., throughout the entire field 
ofplanetar; motion. 

Various have been the theories concerning its sources of 
supply of combustible matter, as we have already seen. 
Nebulous masses have been supposed to have poured their 
half- formed bodies into it, across the orbits of the planets. 
Gravitation has been supposed to have gone counter to all 
laws of gravity, and to have driven such bodies in right 
lines of motion toward the sun's body and thus generated 
inconceivable masses of gravital flame. Again it has been 
supposed that a vast residuary mass of heat was treasured 
up in the sun at that time when burning worlds were 
thrown off from his molten body amid a grand nebulous 
conflagration, and that while all of these bodies have lost 
their nebulous flame and parted with their radial heat, yet 
the parent sun has retained a supply from which they have 
been drawing for all the purposes of life and motion for 
millions of years, and still gives no evidences of exhaustion. 

With these hypotheses filling our text-books of science, 
and repeated in the literature of the past, it is not strange 
that the sun has been regarded of but little more account 
to the solar system than the cooking stoves in our kitchens 
or the coal grates of our fire-places to the social life of the 
household. Thus the grand old king of day has been 
degraded to a servant while he has been a ruler. He has 
been but little thought of as a nourisher of the teeming 



272 SUN AND PLANETS. 

orders of life within his own radiant fields of vast ca- 
pabilities and unmeasured boundaries, while he has con- 
stantly marshaled all the elements of life, and caused 
to spring forth from matter all of the supplies needed for 
the nourishment and sustenance of all forms of being in 
both earth and planets. 

He has been supposed to give to earth and planets every 
thing that makes life possible, while he has been consum- 
ing his own strength. He has been regarded as gleaning 
the gathering elements of matter from space into his own 
burning bosom that he may send forth from his raging fur- 
naces of destruction the beneficence of the sunbeam, to 
become a nourisher of life and a builder of all living or- 
ganisms in the family of the planets It is a wonder to us 
that against such misconceptions of creative wisdom human 
thought has not long since revolted. It does not seem 
wise that a globe of 850,000 miles in diameter should be 
doomed to ages of wasting, and finally to utter extinction 
simply to make habitable a body like our earth, of only 
8,000 miles in diameter, and perchance one or more other 
planets. 

Before proceeding further with our inquiries respecting 
the probable inhabitable condition of sun and planets, we 
ought to note carefully the conditions under which life is 
developed. Leaving out of mind all controversial ques- 
tions respecting the origin of species, we find that light, 
heat and moisture are the leading elements of force in the 
production of the various orders of life. The elements of 
the atmosphere we find, wherever these forms are in active 
play, as they are in the combinations of the atmosphere, 



SUN AND PLANETS. 27:5 

the carrying and distributing agencies of light, heat and 
moisture. In the Mosaic account of creation, light and 
the waters came together, before vegetable life appeared. 
We have regarded light as illuminated currents of gravity 
coming from the mutual attractions of sun and earth, and 
broken up into polarized atoms by the magnetic currents 
of the earth. Moisture, we well know, is a necessary agent 
in distributing or diffusing electricity, and it is alike nec- 
essary to distribute the light. Thus we find a warm humid 
atmosphere favorable to life growths. In such an atmos- 
phere there is a highly magnetized condition of all forms 
within it. In such an atmosphere currents of electricity 
cannot easily be gathered and retained upon the prime con- 
ductor of the electrical machine. The reason for this is, 
that light and heat are preparing to enter into material 
combinations by means of the magnetization of earth cur- 
rents. This leads us to affirm that magnetization or polar- 
ization of light is necessary to the development of life, 
and that we have a right to expect life upon the surface of 
the planets wherever there exists a highly magnetized 
atmosphere. 

The planet's relative position as to nearness to the sun 
has therefore but little effect upon the question of its 
adaptation to the conditions of either animal or plant life. 

In the torrid zone there is snow on the upper slopes of 
lofty mountains during the whole year, while at the base 
of these mountains there may be the luxuriance of 
tropical life. 

Our scientists tell us that this is because of the rare at- 
mosphere of the mountain tops, while they do not tell us 



274 SUN AND FLANETS. 

why it is so rare when it is thousands of feet nearer the sun 
than the atmosphere of the valleys. 

Our reason for such a fact, is, that the strength of 
the magnetic currents on the tops of mountains is not suf- 
ficient to break up the direct sun currents or direct rays of 
the sun's light, and hence there is no polarization and 
diffusion of light, and hence a light and highly electrical 
atmosphere with the thin rays of the sun unbroken by po- 
larization or magnetization, and hence, the cold atmosr- 
phere of the mountains. 

By consulting our astronomical charts, we shall find 
that the light and heat of the planets are calculated with 
reference to the distance they are from the sun, and yet 
the tops of the mountains teach us that as we ascend to- 
wards the sun we reach into regions of eternal frost. In 
an article from the pen of Richard A. Proctor in St. 
Nicholas we find him saying, "That Venus, beautiful 
though she looks, would not be a comfortable home for us. 
In the first place, we know that if we draw nearer to a fire 
we get more heat from it. Now Venus is much nearer the 
sun — the great fire of the solar system — than our earth is. 
She receives then much more heat from him. In fact, it is 
easily calculated that if our earth were set traveling on the 
path of Venus, we should receive almost exactly twice as 
much heat from the sun as we do at present. This would 
be unbearable, except, perhaps, in the polar regions; and 
even there the summer with the sun above'the horizon all 
through the twenty-four hours, would be scarcely bear- 
able. Besides what a contrast between the hot polar 
summer and the cold polar winter, when for weeks together 



SUN AND PLANETS. 275 

the sun would not be seen at all. Altogether, this earth 
would be a miserable home for us if her path were as close 
to the sun as that of Venus. "' 

According to this method of reasoning Venus has a very 
uncomfortable position in relation to the heat of the sun 
and yet between Venus and the sun there is the intense 
and perpetual cold of stellar space. 

The truth is, nearness to the sun has nothing whatever 
to do with the evolution of light or heat upon the planets. 
As light and heat are evolved just where there is inflam- 
mable matter to supply them with light and heat energy, 
so the light and heat energy of the planets are the reser- 
voirs of energy that determine their supplies of warmth 
and illumination. 

In the outermost planets of the solar system, there are 
evidences of self-enlightening, inferior sun systems, with 
revolving satellites to supply any light and heat they 
might lack by means of distance from the sun. The posi- 
tion we assume is this : That wherever magnetization is 
carried forward in matter, there Nature is rearing her 
structures, and wherever these forces build worlds they 
also promote organization, they give life; and wherever 
the lower organizations of life begin, the crowning results 
are the higher orders of being. In the building of the earth 
Nature has drawn largely upon the organizing forces of 
living creatures. 

Our chalk cliffs and ocean beds, and coral reefs and 
islands, our rock structures of coal and lime, our alluvial 
deposits, all tell us that the forces of life go hand in hand 
with the forces of earth creation. Every atom of matter 



276 SUN AND PLANETS. 

that goes to its place in organization goes under the 
charge of the same forces that give life. In fact, creation 
draws upon life forces to perfect and guide in the formation 
of all of its varied structures. As the bird builds its nest 
for the young life that is to be nurtured within it, so all of 
Nature's work in rearing earth-structures is for the varied 
forms of life that shall crown them with a completeness, 
revealing harmony and wisdom. With these views of the 
relation of life to structural organisms, we say that sun and 
planets are not only adapted to the higher orders of life, 
but that nothing short of a miracle can keep them from 
being inhabited. 

According to what we see of creation upon the earth, it 
is no miracle to create species and establish orders of being, 
but rather a miracle to prevent creation. 

As to atmosphere, clouds, moisture, rivers, seas and 
oceans, we know there must be atmosphere where there is 
light, and light and gravity being the same forces, and all 
forms of creation being evolved from these forces, it fol- 
lows that all worlds constitute a single unity of being, and 
having such unity, they are fashioned under the same laws 
of forces and must be after the same likeness. 



CHAPTER XXV. 
ETERNAL FORCES: MIND AND MATTER. 

IN our investigations of electro-magnetic forces we have 
found them to be closely allied to matter. There is 
a materiality about them that submits to material tests. 
We measure the length of the polarized atoms of the sun- 
beam. We can multiply and divide the strength of mag- 
netic currents. We can calculate the strength and velocity 
with which they move through body, and weigh their in- 
fluence over organized masses of matter, and yet they are 
so ethereal in character that they seem to belong to a spir- 
itual order of existence, to an order of creation vastly 
superior to our world of tangible and sensitive forms of 
being. But in carefully noting the wonders of these forms 
we find them always under command, subject to exact laws 
of control. They attract and repel, select and reject, 
move through body and through space, lift atoms, warm, 
enlighten and control worlds, and yet in no case do they 
manifest intelligence in selection or will power in the 
execution of their grand displays of power. There is not 
a change takes place in body or a development in organi- 
zation, or an order of life in our world, but is subject to 
the control of electrical and magnetic forces, and yet in 
all changes, in all growths, in all orders of creation there 
is not the deviation of an atom or an influence from the 



278 ETERNAL FORCES: MIND AND MATTER. 

laws of electrical order and control that indicates the 
presence of thought or the perceptions of reason. 

The sunlight always moves in the same lines of order 
and always bears with it the same elements of strength and 
is constantly performing the same work. Magnetic and 
electrical attractions and repulsions, though they move 
with the velocity of light and weigh all matter as in scales 
and take charge of all atoms, conveying each to its true 
place in body, yet never vary from the exact measure of 
mathematical law. Their balance of matter is exact to 
the weight of an atom, and the inverse order of the squares 
of distances is always the limit of their influence. 

In the mechanism of creation, under the charge of these 
forces there is a perfection of order and a constancy of 
motion that the progress of the ages cannot change. But 
to study the nature of these forces and the order of their 
work we have been led into realms of pure thought, in 
which visions of creative strength become trusty guides, 
and where we find networks of living lines of strength, 
that, though unseen by the natural eye, preside over all of 
the rising structures of material development. 

By tracing out the lines of attraction of that unseen 
power which our philosophers have named gravity, and by 
classifying the phenomena of its intercommunion with all 
forms of matter, and its guidance of all planetary motion, 
we have found that the foundations of all material struc- 
tures are laid upon the unseen elements of space, that 
move with the velocity of lightning and with the strength 
of omnipotence. We have been slow to recognize the 
presence of these strong and living lines of space because 



ETERNAL F0RCE8: MIND AND MATTER. 279 

we have thought there was nothing material except that 
which can be distinguished by the contact of the senses. 

The sub-sensible world we have called spiritual, and 
those displays of power that lie beyond the cognizance of 
the senses we have classed under the works of a purely- 
spiritual being whom we have called God. Thus we have 
separated the spiritual from the material by the cold, dark 
mysteries of the great depths that surround matter. In 
our imagination we have regarded God and spirits as 
dwelling apart at an infinite remove from man and matter, 
heaven no where and man and matter from no whence. 
God eternal, matter an accident, and man and all orders 
of life mere creatures of a spiritual mechanism. We have 
been exceedingly jealous of any efforts on the part of 
human reason to clear away the mysterious depths that 
seem to separate so widely the purely spiritual from the 
grossly material. Hence we have been taught that matter 
is cold and dead, that its only province in the mechanism 
of worlds is to be acted upon, and its only exercise of 
power consisted in the dead weight of inertia. All else 
we have ascribed to God and a mysterious agency that we 
have called the law of gravity, and thus we have resolved 
all force into gravity and God, both unseen and unknown, 
and dwelling apart from each other so far as correlation of 
existence is concerned. 

With this bald materialism on one hand and sublimated 
spiritualism on the other, it has been like the efforts of the 
Son of God to walk upon the waters of the lake of Gennes- 
erat, for our men of science to trust their convictions of 
truth and follow where their increasing insight, by way of 



280 ETERNAL FORCES: MIND AND MATTER. 

experiment into the heretofore hidden secrets of material 
creative potency, would lead. 

That faith, which is commended as so sublime a virtue 
in religious dogma, is regarded with suspicion, and classed 
as infidel and presumptuous on the part of the worshipers 
of God through the revelations of divinity, in the works 
of creation. 

In these papers we have dared to go wherever the ad- 
vancing light of the illuminated cloud of creative forces 
has led, and we have found material forces more potent 
than matter, stronger and firmer, and more enduring than 
any conceptions of material foundations of worlds upon 
which our spiritualistic philosophers have endeavored to 
build. We have seen that under the sensitive touch of 
these forces, all organisms of matter are filled with the life 
currents of creation, and that matter, so far from being 
cold and dead, is warmed with the constant play of life- 
forces around it, and within it, touching each atom with a 
commanding and warming energy. We have also found 
that what we have heretofore regarded as void space, is the 
grand treasury of Nature's creative elements of life and 
strength; and that from these the work of all the grand 
industries of creation is promoted, building up all organ- 
izations of matter, promoting all growths and evolving in 
their order all forms and conditions of life. In the work 
that is done by revolving the great magnets of sun 
and planets, it is easy to trace the wonderful presence of 
these constantly moving forces; but this displays sim- 
ply the most palpable exercise of power, not the most 
wonderful and sensitively creative. The work that evolves 



ETERNAL FORCES: MIND AND MATTER. 28] 

sunlight from the broken electrical currents upon the sur- 
face of the planets — that carries this light to every living 
thing upon all globes — that builds itself into every form of 
evolving matter and every form of life-growth on land and 
in the waters — that carries forward the circulation of 
all fluids in living bodies, and through earth structures — 
that warms with a generous flow of stimulating energy the 
secret fountains of life in all living bodies — that waits 
upon every atom of matter, whether moving in space, 
incorporated into body, or passing through the transfor- 
mations of growths, and determines the order of their mo- 
tion, that presides over the secret forces that produce 
chemical changes in the earth, that warms with rapidly 
passing currents all rolling worlds from center to circum- 
ference, from equator to poles with an energy that pro- 
motes organic life, presides over crystallization and converts 
the evolving gases into the solid structures that rest in the 
deep foundations of the mountains, is the work that 
the forces of gravity are constantly performing, and they 
rest not, night or day. They never grow weary, always 
hastening to complete their circuit of power without 
wasting of strength or the loss of the smallest fraction of a 
second of time. 

In this long catalogue of the work of electrical and 
magnetic forces through the great magnets of sun, planets 
and satellites, we have purposed to compass the order and 
the methods of creative energy in all worlds, and yet we 
do not for a moment cherish the thought that by unfold- 
ing this order of creative work under the control of the 
material forces that fill immensity, that there is, therefore, 



2S2 ETERNAL FORCES: MIND AND MATTER. 

no great creative mind that is God over all. The perfec- 
tion of creative energy in material structures reaches out 
after the higher and nobler forces of spiritual being. The 
fact that we can take up the story of creation and read it 
backward to its beginning of order, that we can catechise 
the forces and listen to the hum of their industries and 
number the advancing steps of their progress, is a revela- 
tion of something superior to matter, of an agency that 
presides over creative forces, that thinks, reasons, and even 
commands material potencies. 

This supreme agency, involving memory, perception, 
thought, reflection, reason, and presiding over all will, or 
mental potentiality, is as truly a factor in the great world 
problem as the material forces that we have studied with 
so much interest. 

This agency has its place in the problem, not simply as 
an idea, as a conception, but as a force. It is a force that 
is self-asserting, self-determining and self-guiding. It is 
not, like the potentiality of matter, always governed by an 
evenly poised balance. If the human will were always 
conditioned by a commanding energy, either of intellect- 
uality or of materiality, it could be canceled from the 
problem, but the sentiment of the world holds the human 
will responsible for its exercise of power, and from its de- 
cisions gains conceptions of justice and injustice, of wis- 
dom and folly, of truth and error. 

This lifts the mind forces of man that we denominate 
soul to a plane superior to that of material forces. The 
human will can antagonize and condition matter and by so 
doing it reveals its kingship. It is necessary that we ac- 



ETERNAL FORCES: MIND AND MATTER. 288 

quaint ourselves with the will as a force superior to mater- 
ial forces before we can acquaint ourselves with God as a 
Creator. In the view we have taken of material forces we 
have to admit that the argument of the theist, that pro- 
fesses to demonstrate the existence and character of God 
from the evidence of design and perfection of order in 
creation, is greatly weakened, if not destroyed, but by so 
doing we elevate and ennoble spiritual forces. As we have 
already stated, it is the province of mind to command, and 
it is also the province of material energy to obey, and we 
here add that material obedience is a perfect obedience 
and a constant obedience. Nature's methods of work are 
forever the same, save as there be an ascending series from 
the small to the great, from the simple to the complex, 
from the germ of the beginning to the completed realiza- 
tion of the possible. In such perfection of order, and 
with such potency of energy as we find in creation's works 
we can see no more call for a Deity to originate species 
than to perpetuate them. 

We can conceive of Deity as commanding the hosts of 
heaven in their order, of ordering the progressions of life 
and being upon the earth, but we cannot conceive Deity 
creating material things independent of material forces. 

And then we cannot think of Deity as setting apart 
a day, a week, or an age to the creation of species, as 
a special work reserved to Himself, and then passing these 
patterns over to material forces to copy, age after age. 
Nay verily, so far as creative forces are concerned there is 
a constant and progressive order of beginnings in all 
forms of life, as truly as a constant order of reproduction. 



284 ETERNAL FORCES : 3IIND AND MATTER. 

In reaching our conceptions of material forces, we first 
gained a knowledge of their presence in matter as dis- 
played in the battery and in the magnet. We found these 
forces subtle, refined, all-pervading and omnipotent. We 
found them sovereigns over matter, and having a life- 
potency prior to all aggregations of matter. By a like 
order of reasoning would we seek after a true conception 
of mind-force and press the thought up to the conception 
of God as the crowning excellency of all life, and all 
orders of being. 

We find that the best temples of creative work on 
our earth are for the human soul to dwell in, and there is 
but a single step to the conception, that the crowning 
glory of creation's universal work, is, to prepare palaces 
for the dwelling places of a sublime order of thinking, 
reasoning, immortal beings. When we learn that the ma- 
terial forces moving in space unseen, constitute a net- 
work of strength that holds all worlds to their paths 
of light and order, we shall be prepared to think of spirit- 
ual forces that are real, and that hold within their orders 
of work, all possibilities of creative mind forces for all 
ranks of immortal spirits. As we have found all creative, 
work on our planet, and all material growths clothed with 
the shining drapery of the light, we can take in the con- 
ception of the dwelling place of spirits as a dwelling place 
of sublime perfection and beauty. But we have antici- 
pated our argument hoping thereby to prepare our minds 
for pursuing it with more trust and clearer convictions 
than we might otherwise gain. 

We find in the electro-magnet as constructed by Prof. 



ETERNAL FORCES : MIND AND MATTER. 285 

Henry, that by uniting the surrounding wire with the gal- 
vanic battery it was instantly endowed with a power capa- 
ble of lifting more than two thousand pounds. Our 
conclusion is, that a real, unseen presence passed through 
the wires of the battery, whose strength was a fixed deter- 
minate reality ; having weight of 2,056 pounds. 

From this real presence of an unseen force, gathered 
from space with the rapidity of the lightning's flash, we 
built our argument respecting the dynamic energy that is 
in space sovereign over matter. 

But Prof. Henry had by careful thought and effort con- 
structed the magnet so as to elicit such a power, and by 
bringing to his aid a fulcrum and lever, the Professor by 
the application of his own strength could lift the weight 
at will. In such an event will-power reveals an efficiency 
superior to material force, in that the one is reflective and 
self-moved, while the other is simply material energy. As 
we noted the strength of the magnet by the sum of 2,056 
pounds, so we note the weight of thought-force in the mind 
of the Professor at the same number, and thus we balance 
material force with thought-force. We note a distinct 
difference between these agencies of power that marks the 
superiority of the one over the other, and with this dis- 
tinction in mind we may affirm that the world of spirit 
and of thought is as truly a demonstrable fact as the 
world of matter and material force. 

But the clear thinker comes to us with the thought that 
the human body is a battery and magnet of superior work- 
manship to that prepared by the skill of the Professor and 
that after all material force should take the first place. 



28ft ETERNAL FORCES : MIND AND MATTER. 

We reply that in the comparison the one is clothed with 
the personality of thought, reason and will, and appears 
as an intelligent commander, while the other appears as a 
mere bundle of instruments nicely fashioned and adapted 
to work as a servant. Again, it may be urged, that the 
mind dwells in a structure of material workmanship, and 
without it the mind is an impossibility. We reply, that as 
the body is constituted the servant of the mind so it is its 
office to prepare for the mind its palace and to bear it up- 
on its shoulders as a royal guest. We may be questioned 
one step further and asked : If the soul hold an independ- 
ent personality, separate from the brain structure, at what 
point of the dual being is the union joined? 

We answer at the sensitive touch of that magnetic force 
that is the most refined and subtle energy of body, and 
which is ordained as the communing force between life and 
body, between mind and material energy. 

At such a point of union between the spiritual and ma- 
terial the soul touches the magnetic keys of brain, as the 
musician touches the keys of a well tuned instrument and 
thus gives voice to his thoughts of harmony. 

Thus when we have pressed our thoughts ot material 
forces up to the vanishing line of materiality, to a mag- 
netic sovereignty in matter, we find it there touches the 
boundaries of spiritual forces and of spiritual personalities, 
that are as real and as self-affirming as the forces and agen- 
cies of matter. 

We are thus enabled to pass the open door of pure 
reason, to a world of spiritual agencies that holds its rank 
above and superior to our world of matter and of material 



ETERNAL FORCES: MINI) AND MATTER. 287 

forces. But are we here confronted with the religious 
sceptic, who has materialized both God and heaven, and 
asked, "How can these things be?" we return the answer, 
"That which is born of spirit is spirit." What that per- 
sonality in us, is, which we affirm in our struggles after 
possession, ownership, and the comforts and pleasures of 
life, we cannot tell in the language of material symbols. 
We can give to it no measure, we can not gain a concep- 
tion of it that can be sketched by pen or pencil. It has 
in us an ideal personality. It asserts its presence as a 
power by its acts of power, but it always hides its presence, 
as the world of pure spirits is hid from our view. Let no 
one turn from this struggle of mind to gain possession of 
thought- images that can only hold a place in the realms 
of pure reason, baffled and disheartened, to solace the mind 
with the tangible things of matter, as some Baal worshipers 
cling to their religious creeds, saying "these are realities 
and are teachers of truths beyond which we do not care 
to go." They will find in the mathematical measure- 
ments of body and space, problems equally perplexing to 
our thoughts of spirit and of a spiritual world. 

The solar system appears to us, in lines of material 
measurement, utterly incomprehensible. 

The distance of our earth from the sun is set down at 
some 90,000,000 of miles, a number "out-reaching human 
thought, as a measure. Then Neptune has a distance 
from the sun thirty times greater than that of the earth. 
Let the materialist struggle to gain an idea of the bounda- 
ries of the solar system and he is lost in his reckoning; 
and if lost here, how can he grapple with the thoughts of 



288 ETERNAL FORCES: MIND AND MATTER. 

the Universe, measured by his own dear standards that are 
fixed material measures? 

But we have found that even matter ignores such stand- 
ards of measure. Material forces themselves prefer to 
measure distances by heart throbs rather than by millions 
of miles. The earth and sun hold a magnetic communion 
with each other, so as to exchange greetings in lines of 
light in every eight minutes of time, and the magnetic 
strength of the sun pulsates from center to circumference 
of the solar system, in only four hours of time. Thus by 
the standard of that ethereal essence that separates the 
spiritual world from the material, creation is brought within 
the grasp of human thought, and a conception of a world 
of spiritual reality gains a lodgment in the pure concep- 
tions of even human reason. This sympathetic union is 
preserved under the constant flow of the sunlight and 
planet-light, across the vast intervals that separate suns and 
planets. 

It would here afford us great pleasure to call attention 
to the abundant evidence that we have of the sensitive and 
apparently nervous system of forces that extends through- 
out the solar system ; but the plan of our work forbids 
anything like an exhaustive treatment of the subjects 
brought under our general theme. It is sufficient for us to 
state that the magnetic currents of the earth, that are de- 
tected by the vibrations of the magnetic needle, and the 
system of suspended magnets used in the United States 
coast survey at their posts of observation, are always 
responsive to apparent magnetic changes upon the surface 
of the sun. . The changed polarity between earth and sun 



ETERNAL FORCES: 3IIXJ) AND MATTER. 289 

occasioned by the daily revolution of the earth, arising 
from the earth's inclination to the plane of her orbit, 
causes daily corresponding vibrations of the magnetic nee- 
dle. These changes are 15' in summer and 10' in winter. 
From about 8 a. m. to 1 p. m. the north pole moves to the 
west and swings slowly back until 10 p. m. It then moves 
west until 3 a, m., returning to its starting point at 8 a. m. 
The careful observation of these magnetic changes that 
arise from temporary disturbances of the sun's photosphere, 
is the basis upon which rest the weather prophecies of cli- 
matic changes upon the earth. The sun-spots always 
indicate their presence by their disturbance of these mag- 
netic currents of the earth. 

These facts of matter, and these seemingly solid struct- 
ures of planets, with their foundations of granite and their 
vast measures of oceans and seas, mountains and plains, 
yield a perfect obedience to a subtle magnetic agency that 
at best, marks but an insensible line between a world of 
matter and a world of spirits. The majesty of matter here 
bows to that wonderful potency that gathers the grand po- 
tencies of the solar system in a single grasp, and touches 
every atom of matter and compasses its entire circuits of 
motion in a period of time of insignificant measure. 

But a step beyond such an essence and such a potency 
the mind needs to go to think of God and spirits, to think 
of mind forces and mind measures that make a spirit- 
world their dwelling place, and earth and matter their 
footstool. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter I. 
Laws and Modes of Motion 9-1 9 

Chapter II. 
First Things • 20-48 

Chapter III. 
The Mysteries of the Magnet 49-60 

Chapter IV. 
Gravitation 61-67 

Chapter V. 
Gravitation and Planetary Motion 68-85 

Chapter VI. 
Evolution of Light 86-98 

Chapter VII. 
Heat, Light and Life 94-1 11 

Chapter VIII. 
Across the Border 112-121 

Chapter IX. 
Fourth State of Matter 122-124 

Chapter X. 
Unity of the Forces 125-131 

Chapter XI. 
Nature's Methods in Creation 132-185 

Chapter XII. 

Attraction and Repulsion Equal Factors in Gravi- 
tation 136-143 



292 CONTENTS. 

Chapter XIII. 
Sources of Light and Heat 144-150 

Chapter XIV. 
Light as a Builder 157-165 

Chapter XV. 
Scientific Revelations 166-180 

Chapter XVI. 
The Unseen World 181-186 

Chapter XVII. 
Latent and Sensible Power 187-195 

Chapter XVIII. 
Radiant Matter and Mechanical Power 196-207 

Chapter XIX. 
Prom Whence Rocks 208-214 

Chapter XX. 

Porm and Motion of Planets Determine Their 

Origin 215-225 

Chapter XXI. 
Life and Radiant Matter 226-228 

Chapter XXII. 
Evolution of Life 229-246 

Chapter XXIII. 
Testimony of the Spectrum 247-261 

Chapter XXIV", 
Sim and Planets. Are They Inhabited ? 262-276 

Chapter XXV. 
Eternal Forces : Mind and Matter 277-289 



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